


Potential Friends.

by steeleye



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), The Professionals (TV 1977)
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/F, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:20:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26524354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steeleye/pseuds/steeleye
Summary: Life for 15 year old Schoolgirl Kennedy DeSilver is such a pain! Not only must she come to terms with being a Potential Slayer, but, in between slayer training and shopping she must make friends with the most unfashionable girl in school.
Relationships: Kennedy (BtVS)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

KENNEDY’S SCHOOLDAZES

PART ONE.

POTENTIAL FRIENDS.

By Steeleye.

.

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or ‘The Professionals’. I write these stories for fun not profit.

 **Crossover:** BtVS/The Professionals.

 **Timeline:** Set around the year 2000.

 **Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar:** Written in glorious UK-English (the original and best) which is different to US-English.. 

**Words:** Nine Chapters each of 3000+ words

 **Warnings:** “FIRE IN THE HOLE!!!”

 **Summary:** Life for 15 year old Schoolgirl Kennedy DeSilver is such a pain! Not only must she come to terms with being a Potential Slayer, but, in between slayer training and shopping she must make friends with the most unfashionable girl in school.

0=0=0=0

“I’m sorry,” there she’d said it.

Kennedy didn’t know why, Mr Doyle, he of the murky past and Kennedy’s newly acquired Watcher, was making her do this. He’d spent half an hour expounding, in minute detail, on her every character flaw and weakness. Even when she’d burst into tears, something she'd not done since she'd been twelve, he’d just kept going on and on until he'd completed his character assignation. He’d not even offered her a cup of tea afterwards he’d just sent her back to her room. Right at that moment, Kennedy made up her mind then and there that Mr Doyle was a real ‘pig’ and decided to hate him for the rest of her life.

Earlier he’d explained what he expected of her if she was ever chosen as the next Slayer, she needed to change and change quickly, there may not be much time. The first thing she had to do, he told her, was to say sorry to the girl who’s life she'd made a misery for the last two or three years. After all hadn’t he not just explained to her that she was a bossy spoiled bitch and a bully and it had to stop…now!

0=0=0=0

“It’s a trick!” Jackie Carter-Brown looked around the old lawn tennis courts her eyes darting from side to side like a trapped animal searching for an escape route.

‘The Courts’ hadn’t been used in years, the grass was well over knee height and you could just see the top of the old rotting nets peeking above the undergrowth. The entire area was surrounded by a tall unkempt hedge that towered above the two girl’s heads and hid it from the rest of the school grounds. This was Jackie’s refuge, the place she went when she wanted to be alone and escape the continual teasing that her so called school-mates subjected her to.

“It’s not,” Kennedy stepped towards the girl, but when Jackie looked as if she was going to bolt she took a step back. “Look, it’s not a trick I totally mean it, I’ve been a complete bitch to you and I want that to change.”   
That sounded so trite that even Kennedy winced inwardly. Jackie was everything Kennedy wasn’t; Kennedy loved sports, she played Netball, Hockey and was a leading light in the school’s Track and Field team. She was attractive and intelligent, she wasn’t a ‘nerd’ but she got good marks in most of her subjects. She was also popular with all the ‘right’ girls at Linton Park Academy, and that popularity would be useful to her in the years to come.

Looking down at the girl in front of her, Kennedy had an almost irresistible urge to grab hold of her and give her a good shaking…she was such a ‘dog’! Jackie wasn’t exactly fat, she was plump. She had a fine collection of spots and her hair was straggly and lifeless, and my god those glasses! Kennedy felt like screaming, why was she like that? It wasn’t as if the girl was dumb, she was in fact incredibly bright; she’d be the girl who would end up at Oxford or Cambridge, and no doubt discover something incredibly, earth shatteringly important.

The best Kennedy thought she would manage was maybe a degree in Art History or something at a minor university. That, of course was before she'd found out she was a Potential Slayer and would probably not live long enough to go to ‘uni’. These thoughts made her angry again; Jackie saw the look in her eyes and made a dash for safety, Kennedy didn’t even bother to chase after her, she knew exactly what would happen.

Watching as Jackie lumbered towards a gap in the hedge and after no more than half a dozen paces Jackie tripped and fell and sprawled in the long grass, her books flying one way and her glasses flying another. Sighing heavily, Kennedy walked slowly over to where Jackie lay and retrieved the girl’s glasses from the long grass; Jackie would never have found them by herself, Kennedy blew on the lenses to clear them of grass seeds. The glasses were Jackie in a nutshell; they were clumsy, heavy and unfashionable. Looking down at Jackie where she searched in vain for her spectacles, she resisted the urge to hang the glasses on the hedge and just walk away, Mr Doyle would never know…she _had_ tried after all.

It wasn’t as if Jackie was poor (no girl at Linton Park was). Her family were big into ‘Agro-industry’ and owned half of Yorkshire. Her people could have bought her nice light fashionable specs, or easily paid for corrective surgery; Kennedy looked at the chunky black plastic frames and the milk bottle thick lenses and sighed again.

“Here,” she held out the glasses to Jackie, it almost hurt to be kind to this…words almost failed her (but didn’t)…dweeb! 

Jackie reached for her spectacles expecting them to be snatched away at the last moment; she didn’t know whether to be pleased of suspicious when they weren’t.

“Thank-you,” grudgingly Jackie took the glasses from the hand of her tormentor and replaced them on her face; the world swam back into focus.

“Here,” Kennedy reached out her hand to help Jackie to her feet, “I’ll understand if you knock it away…” 

‘Oh please’, the thought went through Kennedy’s mind, ‘please knock it away’, then I can walk away from this and tell Mr Doyle I tried but…

Jackie looked around; this must be a trap, some new degradation that would send all of DeSilver’s friends into fits of hysterical laughter, but there was no one else in sight. Reaching out for the offered hand and once again expecting it to be snatched away and humiliation rained on her once. Cautiously she took hold of the proffered hand and much to her surprise she was pulled to her feet.

Kennedy bent and started to brush grass and seeds from Jackie’s uniform (Oh god this girl really needed to take more care with her personnel hygiene!). It was the height of summer and she was still wearing her dark grey winter tights. No wonder she smelt slightly of BO, standing up straight she looked Jackie up and down and shook her head sadly.

“Do you totally wanna change?” Kennedy stood back from the target of her question, “I can help you know?” Not a lot but a little…well she couldn’t make her much worse.

“Wha’?” the surprise on Jackie’s face was plain to see.

“Look,” Kennedy became very serious, “you’ve got maybe three more years of this hell,” she waved her arm around to encompass the school grounds. “Now, you can either stay as you are and be a pathetic loser for the next three years…or...?” Kennedy let the question hang in the air, was that hope she saw in Jackie’s eyes? “Or you can put yourself in my hands and life will at least be bearable. It’s up to you.”

Please, please tell me to piss off, Kennedy’s mind begged an uncaring universe.

After a minute when there had been no answer Kennedy turned on her heel and started to make her way through the grass back towards the school buildings. Not having gone more than a few yards she heard footsteps stumble along behind her. A moment later she cried out in shock as she was brought to the ground, Jackie had tripped and fallen again this time bringing both of them down into the long grass.

“Sorry,” Jackie muttered as she looked hopelessly up at Kennedy.

“Let’s walk before we run huh?” suggested Kennedy as she climbed back to her feet.

 _Please no!_ Her mind screamed at her, now she was stuck with this stinky chick who’d no doubt follow her round like a puppy for the next three years. What would she tell her friends? How would she live this down? As she picked herself up and dusted herself down Kennedy decided that she really, really, really hated her watcher!

0=0=0=0

Kennedy had been sent to Linton Park Academy when she was twelve. Her father, Michael DeSilver, hadn’t wanted to send his eldest daughter so far away to go to school, but he’d had to for her own safety. He’d explained to Kennedy that some of his ‘business rivals’ might take advantage of Kennedy’s presence in the States to pressure him into doing things he didn’t want to do. In Britain she would be safe…far away from prying eyes, as her father had put it.

What this all meant exactly was beyond a twelve year old Kennedy, she just knew she was being sent away by her Daddy. Even if her step-mother had cried like a real mom when her parents had seen her off at the airport she still felt bitter and rejected. At first she'd hated Linton Park and the stuck up English girls who snubbed her at every turn that first term. It wasn’t until she started her second year at the school that she worked out what the real situation was.

Linton Park Academy was a very exclusive school for the daughters of the very rich; or more precisely for the daughters of rich parents who couldn’t be bothered with them. As soon as Kennedy realised this she found she could manipulate the situation for her own ends. Kennedy was, after all, her father’s daughter and wasn’t that what he did in his ‘business’ deals? Very soon she started to fit right in and even began to enjoy herself; she became ‘popular’, she became a leader among the girls of her own age and idolised by the younger girls. Then in the Autumn Term after her fifteenth birthday it all started to change.

0=0=0=0

It was then that Mr Doyle came to the ‘Park’ to teach history. He was a distinguished looking man in his mid-fifties with an air of mystery about him. No one seemed to be able to find out much about him. Where he'd taught before, where he’d got his qualifications from, what he’d done before he became a teacher. Yet the school board had no hesitation in employing him, in fact they seemed eager to do so.

The first few weeks of term went by normally until Mr Doyle started to take an interest in Kennedy. At first it was just the normal stuff teachers did if they thought a bright girl wasn’t trying hard enough. Then he'd started to tutor her after school, it was all weird stuff about ancient myths which was interesting but nothing to do with Modern European History which was what Kennedy was supposed to be studying.

Next he'd started going on about vampires, werewolves and demons. Obviously, Kennedy thought, he was some type of pervert who preyed on teenage girls after filling their heads with stories about the occult. Well, Kennedy wasn’t going to fall for that one and had remained firmly sceptical and on her guard for any wandering hands. Until that fateful night she'd been tricked into going to the local cemetery. 

Expecting to be attacked and raped by the ‘Pervert History Teacher’ she nearly didn’t notice the vampire dig itself from the fresh grave…nearly. Screaming she’d run only to have the vampire appear in front of her. He lunged at the terrified girl, but she’d nimbly jumped aside and continued running for her life in the opposite direct. Just as she was about to get out of the graveyard and onto the main road the vampire sprang up in front of her again, this time it managed to grab her by the shoulders.

Fighting with all her strength as the vampire inexorably pulled her towards his waiting fangs, she’d punched, scratched and kicked the creature of the night but nothing seemed to have any effect. Then just as she was about to give up and let the vampire sink its teeth into her neck, it exploded into dust and she fell to the ground gasping and crying in fear and relief.

That was how Kennedy DeSilver found out about the evil that lay just below the surface of civilisation, and how one day she might just be the ‘One Girl in all the World’ who was destined to fight the creatures of the night. Of course she kicked Doyle in the shins as hard as she could, before storming off back to school. He’d limped for nearly a week.

0=0=0=0

Having managed to dump Jackie back at the dormitories with promises that she would return to start her transformation from slug to…well if not beautiful butterfly, at least to a reasonably attractive moth. Kennedy made her way up to Mr Doyle’s study to report that she’d completed her mission. After knocking on the door she waited, there was no answering call for her to enter; she knocked again, but there was still no sound from inside. 

Looking up and down the dark, deserted corridor, Kennedy wondered why were all ‘Public’ schools so drab? It wasn’t as if they couldn’t afford a coat of paint or even a new light bulb; she looked up at the cobweb shrouded light bulb that hung from the ceiling, it had been dead for as long as she could remember.

The only light entering the corridor came from a window a dozen feet down the passageway from her; even so Kennedy’s sharp eyes could pick out no movement down there in the gloom. Her ears could detect no sound other than the background noise of the school on a sunny Saturday afternoon. she'd always had good eyesight and sharp hearing; it was one of the things that helped make her so good at sports. Plus, she was also stronger than most girls her age, not super-strong like a slayer was, but still stronger than a teenage girl should be.

Placing her ear against Mr Doyle’s door and listened really hard, she heard not a sound, she knocked again and listened. Only silence greeted her ears reaching for the door knob she started to twist it slowly and carefully, after a moment the door clicked quietly open. Slowly she pushed the door open and stepped quietly into the room, now maybe she could find out something about her mystery watcher.

Walking across the threadbare carpet Kennedy cast her eyes around the room. Dusty sunlight came in through a grubby window which looked out over the quad in the centre of the school. The occupant of the room also got a great view of the rest of the school’s roofs and chimneys from up here, they were about four floors up. There was a large old Victorian writing desk piled high with exercise books and test papers, a computer terminal was hidden beneath all this clutter, books littered the floor and several bookshelves lined the walls.

A floor board squeaked behind her then just as Kennedy started to turn to confront whoever was behind her an arm whipped around her neck and caught her in a strangle hold. Knowing just what to do, she grabbed her attacker’s wrist with her left hand and placed her right on her assailants elbow. Pulling down on the wrist she pushed up on the elbow at the same time. This would have the effect of breaking the hold and putting her foe into an arm lock. Well, that was the theory; it helped if you could move your attacker’s arm.

The aggressor tightened his grip and the world started to grow dark around the edges of her vision. Don’t panic, she told herself just before she used her elbow to jab her attacker in the ribs. Unfortunately he’d been expecting this countermove and her elbow bounced harmlessly off his upper arm as he twisted to receive her attack. It was now Kennedy started to panic as she gasped for breath and the world went darker still. Only one thing left to do, Kennedy stamped down hard on her assailants foot with all her strength and weight. There was a surprised gasp of pain and suddenly Kennedy could breathe again! Turning around where she stood she brought her knee up sharply; Mr Doyle fell to the floor clutching at his crotch.

“OH!” Cried Kennedy not sure what she should do next.

With a suddenness all the more surprising considering Doyle’s age and recent injury, he lashed out with his foot and connected with the side of Kennedy’s knee. Crying out in pain she joined her teacher on the floor.

“Never,” gasped Mr Doyle as he clambered, gasping for breath, back to his feet, “ever fail to press home an advantage like that again girl!” Doyle rested with his hands on his knees as he half stood half crouched on the other side of the room from Kennedy. “If I’d been a vampire that counter would have put me down for a few seconds only…you must learn to take advantage of your enemy’s every weakness.”

Looking up at him from the floor were she sat rubbing her knee, kennedy smoothed down her skirt to cover the expanse of thigh she'd been showing. Glarring at Doyle she cursed the stupid school rules that said she had to wear school uniform even on a Saturday.

“Did you do what I told you?” wheezed Doyle as he studied his potential through pain filled eyes.

Kennedy smiled to herself as she watched Doyle limp to his chair.

“Yes,” she answered petulantly. 

“Good,” Doyle sat down with a sigh, “now piss off and be back here at nine o’clock tomorrow morning…and wear outdoors clothes.”

Kennedy stood and wondered if she should ask what they’d be doing.

“You still here?” Mr Doyle turned to his desk and started to search through the piles of paper that lay there, “Shut the door behind you as you leave!”

Turning quickly Kennedy headed out of the room slamming the door behind her before storming off down the corridor trying to control the tears that stung at her eyes. That had been a good counter to an attack by a superior foe, but did she get any praise? No she didn’t.

“Bastard!” she muttered under her breath; oh how Doyle would be sorry when Daddy found out what he’d been doing to his little girl.

0=0=0=0

Sitting, uncomfortably on his chair Ray Doyle winced, he was getting too old for this…training potentials was a young man’s game. For a moment memories of his old friend and partner Bodie came back to him and he smiled. Well, maybe not that young man he thought. He moved another pile of papers and sighed, he was almost sure he'd seen a telephone in here somewhere. Maybe he should have taken the Minister up on that offer they’d made to make him a Judge; it would certainly be less painful.

0=0=0=0

Note; for those who don’t know, Martin Shaw, the actor who played ‘Ray Doyle’ in the ‘Professionals’ TV series also played ‘Judge John Dee’ in another more recent TV series. 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two.

Cursing quietly to herself, Kennedy trailed along behind Doyle as they made their way through the orchards around the ‘Park’ towards god knew where. She wouldn’t have minded so much if it had been any other day but Sunday. Sunday was the one day no one bothered to get you out of bed in the morning and you could sleep in. This morning, because of Doyle, Kennedy had to creep out of her room and go to Doyle’s study well before any of the other girls in her year were awake. When she’d arrived at his door he’d burst out into the corridor and thrown a heavy sports bag at her. The bag clanked and rattled at her as she caught it; Doyle ordered her to follow him.

Oh great, she had thought, weapons training again. Truthfully she didn’t mind weapons training that much; she was faster than Doyle and more agile so she could usually hold her own against his superior strength and experience; she wondered what surprises Doyle had in store for her today.  
They made their way through one of the many apple orchards that covered the countryside around the Park. The grass was still wet with dew from the night before and Kennedy’s trainers and the bottom’s of jeans were already soaking wet, no doubt they were ruined and if she caught a chill she’d…well actually, she had to admit, she very rarely got ill. One of the very few upsides to being a potential she supposed.

Swiping wildly at insects that blundered against her face, Kennedy felt the weight of the bag as it bit into her shoulder and banged against her back…one day she would make Doyle suffer for these indignities. Lost in her own thoughts she didn’t notice Doyle turn sharply to his left. It wasn’t until the sheer drop into the old overgrown quarry loomed in front of her that she snapped fully alert as she realised she was going to fall to her death any second now and grabbed for a nearby sapling and brought herself to a halt.

“Keep y’wits about you girl!” snapped Doyle from further along the path that ran around the rim of the quarry.

With an ill grace and more muttered oaths about the eventual fate of evil history teachers who also happened to be watchers, Kennedy stumbled on following in Doyle’s footsteps. After a few more minutes walk they found themselves at the entrance to the old quarry. This part of Kent was littered with such quarries and gravel pits, all out of use and overgrown they made perfect training areas for the potential slayer and her watcher.

Following Doyle along a path that led deeper into the quarry, Kennedy wondered what would happen next. The sapling and tree shrouded banks rose above them as they walked deeper into the hole in the ground. After about fifty yards or so they came to a wide circular area that had been cleared of undergrowth. Kennedy looked around herself; the rear wall of this arena was a sheer rock face cut into the stone by countless past quarrymen. The other three sides were almost as steep but were overgrown with long grass, bushes and saplings. The floor of the clearing was flat and covered in gravel and stunted grass.

“Put the bag down there,” Doyle pointed to a large boulder that stood near the entrance to the clearing.

He limped over to the bag and unzipped it, Kennedy smiled when she realised he was still suffering from where she had stamped on his foot the previous day. It made her feel a little better…but only a little.

“Here,” Doyle took a couple of plastic supermarket bags out of the sports bag and handed them to Kennedy, “arrange these over there at the foot of the cliff.”

Looking into the bags she saw that they were full of empty soft drinks cans; obediently she did as she was told and wondered what the hell Doyle was playing at, she was soon found out. After placing the tins at the foot of the cliff, balancing them on the jumble of stones that lay there, she walked back to see Doyle holding a pistol in his hand.

“Great!” Kennedy muttered under her breath, “Now he’s gonna kill me.”

For a moment Kennedy was actually worried by her thought; no one had ever mentioned what happened to unchosen potentials. Doyle obviously saw the worry on her face.

“Don’t worry,” he smirked, “I’m not going to shoot you.”

He held up the little pistol in front of Kennedy and pulled back the slide.

“This is a Walther PPK pistol,” he started to lecture, Kennedy knew that tone of voice, it was the same one he used when explaining the causes of the Second World War or how best to stake a vampire.

“And before you say anything, yes it’s the same type that was used by James Bond.”

Kennedy grinned she had noticed that just lately she had been taking a, what she would have called not so long ago, unhealthy interest in weapons. But now she found she was getting more and more into them.

“Normally,” continued Doyle bringing Kennedy’s mind back to the subject in hand, “this would be a 9mm weapon; however this one has been re-barrelled for the smaller .22 calibre round. This has a lower recoil and makes it a better training weapon for a girl of your age and weight.”

For the next few minutes Doyle went on about magazine capacity and how the pistol actually worked, and to never call it a ‘gun’, and never point it, or any other firearm at anyone unless she intended to shoot them. He went over the basics of aiming and changing magazines quickly. Then as he started to load rounds into a magazine he explained his thinking on the subject of firearms and the forces of darkness.

“Many of my colleagues don’t approve of firearms,” he spoke quietly and his voice lost some of its lecturing tone, “they say that bullets don’t kill so many of the things you may have to face so why bother? Take a vampire for instance,” he slipped the magazine into the pistol grip, “bullets won’t kill them true,” he pulled back the slide cocking the weapon, “But they still hurt them and,” he aimed at the tins at the foot of the cliff thirty yards away, “if you shot them in the knee cap.” he fired off a dozen rounds sending a tin flying through the air with each crack of the pistol, “he’s not going to be running around for a while afterwards.” He showed Kennedy the open breach and the empty magazine.

“People forget that you can injure vampires just as you can humans,” Doyle ejected the empty magazine from the pistol and slipped in a loaded one, “and the same goes for other creatures of the night.” He passed the pistol over to Kennedy and helped her get into a firing position. “To deny ourselves the use of firearms is denying ourselves a useful tool. There,” he stepped away from Kennedy, “remember squeeze the trigger don’t jerk it and aim at the centre of the observed mass. Now in your own time…go on!”

Kennedy emptied the pistol at the tin cans and hit about three times in four, she smiled to herself, this was fun!

0=0=0=0

Sitting down on a nearby boulder, Doyle groaned, god she’d caught him a good one yesterday afternoon; she’d have never have managed it when he’s been in CI5 or even just a few years ago. He called out a correction to Kennedy’s stance as she rained death and destruction down on the evil tin cans. This girl was a natural, maybe if she was never chosen he might be able to find her something in the security services, he’d ask Bodie the next time he saw him.

In a way it was just as well that Kennedy could be such an objectionable little bitch, it didn’t do to get too attached to your potential. It was worse if your potential became The Slayer of course, which was like handing your daughter a death sentence and he didn’t think he could deal with that. He’d read the diaries and he knew what it did to watchers to see their slayer die. Far better to keep everything on a professional basis, don’t get emotionally involved…but she was just a kid; how had he got himself involved with all this?

0=0=0=0

Ray Doyle had started out as a normal beat copper working in the Eastend of London and around the docks; it all seemed like more than a lifetime ago now. He’d worked his way up and taken his detective’s exams; passing he found he had a knack for undercover work and eventually he had come to the notice of the security services. He’d been approached by George Cowley who was heading up a new anti-crime/terrorist unit. They were to use unconventional tactics against both criminal gangs and terrorists. Of course Doyle had jumped at the chance; he’d been young and foolish back then.

Eventually he’d become too old for fieldwork, and found he was unsuited to sitting behind a desk. He’d drifted for a while living on his Government pension until he’d been approached by the Watchers Council. They’d told him that he had all the skill sets they needed to train potential slayers. They gave him some additional training to allow him to fulfil his new duties, and a couple of years later he found himself as a newly minted watcher, Kennedy was his third potential and probably the best so far, not that he would ever tell her that.

He handed Kennedy the last loaded magazine and watched as she sent the last few surviving shreds of tin can spinning into the air. He nodded to himself, she was good, if she never became the slayer one of the more shady government security organisations could use her, she might even survive long enough to have something approaching a normal life.

“Stop that,” he warned himself, “next thing you know you’ll be feeling sorry for her.” 

He stood up as Kennedy unloaded the empty magazine and looked at him expectantly; she’d really enjoyed herself this morning.

“That’s it for today,” he saw her face fall and felt a twinge of regret, “you’ve done well today, take the rest of the day off!”

Kennedy looked at Doyle as her mouth fell open in disbelief; she sprinted off in the direction of the school before he had a chance to change his mind.

0=0=0=0

By the time Kennedy made it back to school she had just enough time to shower and change before lunch. Finding her friends, they made their way to the dinning room situated in the newly completed annex to the main building. The annex was all glass and white paint and pretty soulless. Kennedy hated it, she rather liked the old world charm of the main buildings, however it provided the school with a large dinning room or hall and since the new kitchens had been completed the quality of the food had improved dramatically.

Sarah, Cynthia, Maya and Kennedy sat around their table and discussed boybands, guys and the latest school gossip. Not that Kennedy was much interested in boys or indeed boybands, and she was starting to become the subject of school gossip.

“So what’s it that you an’ old Doylie get up to?” Cynthia picked at her salad while the other two girls waited eagerly for Kennedy’s answer.

“Oh, y’know?” Kennedy answered vaguely, “School stuff.”

“Yeah right!” Sarah sniggered suggestively, “Locked up in that room of his for hours…I bet!

“You can tell us,” Maya looked sympathetically at her and reached across the table to squeeze Kennedy’s hand, “If he’s doing something he shouldn’t…”

“Ewww! Gross!” cried Kennedy laughing, “I promise you if he laid one finger on me I’d be off to Mrs McClusky pronto!”

The girls giggled together as Kennedy thought desperately of a way to change the subject. She glanced across the room to see Jackie Carter-Brown sitting on her own by one of the windows. Kennedy pointed at the girl.

“You see JCB over there?” Kennedy used Jackie’s cruel nickname; a JCB being a type of mechanical digger and referred to Jackie’s eating habits.

The other three girls turned and looked at the lonely girl by the window.

“As if we could miss her!” sniggered Cynthia to the amusement of Maya and Sarah, oddly Kennedy didn’t find it that funny any-more.

“I bet you,” began Kennedy slowly, “that I can ‘extreme’ make her over enough to get a date for the Christmas Ball!”

“No way!” Sarah almost choked on a lettuce leaf.

“Oh come on!” Cynthia smirked, “What you gonna do, pay for her to have complete body restructuring?”

“I’ll take that bet.” Maya looked Kennedy in the eye, no trace of amusement on her face, “What’ya willing to lose?”

“What about my new Laptop you’ve been lusting after?” Kennedy’s competitive streak rose to the surface, “And what about when I win? What are you willing to lose?”

“I’m sure we I can think of something.” Maya reached out and stroked the back of Kennedy’s hand, “Y’know what I mean?”

“Okay, you’ll be my Fag* for a month!” replied Kennedy as the other two girls giggled at this display of thinly disguised passion.

“No way!” Maya took her hand away and sat up in her seat, “One week!”

Kennedy smiled, maybe Maya wasn’t that eager to get into her panties after all.

“Okay,” Kennedy smiled to herself, “what about two weeks?”

“Yeah alright,” Maya hesitated for a moment, “An’ I don’t want your laptop, I want you to be my Fag when I win!”

“Okay!” replied Kennedy airily as she stood up, “It’s a bet,” she looked down at Sarah and Cynthia, “you two are witnesses right?” The two other girls nodded their heads dumbly. “Now,” Kennedy turned to leave, “I’m a chick on a mission!” Head held high Kennedy strode across the dinning room towards Jackie’s table.

0=0=0=0

Kennedy’s mind was in turmoil as she walked across the dining room, what was she thinking? This sounded like the plot to a bad teen-movie, take the ugly duckling and turn her into a swan. Me and my big mouth, wailed Kennedy internally, she looked down at Jackie as the girl shovelled steak and kidney pie into her mouth with one hand and held a book on some science stuff with the other.

Well, Kennedy mused, she was almost sure she could get Daddy to pay for liposuction and plastic surgery if she asked. Maybe a better idea would be to have Jackie kidnapped and replaced by someone more attractive. Sighing resignedly, she realised that neither option was really practicable, she pulled out a chair and sat down across from Jackie.

The Loser-Girl looked up at her; she had only noticed Kennedy when she had sat down at her table, immediately she started looking for a member of staff or an escape route. Kennedy reached across the table and pulled Jackie’s dinner plate away from her.

“That stops right now!” Kennedy ordered as she looked into Jackie’s terrified face, “We start you on a healthy diet as of now! No more pie, no more midnight snacks. You start training with me tomorrow morning.” Kennedy reached across the table and ran her finger across Jackie’s forehead like some one checking for dust, she looked at her finger tip in disgust, “We clear up that complexion and get the grease outta your hair…Now, do you have money?”

Jackie nodded her head dumbly.

“Good coz we’re goin’ to town this afternoon,” Kennedy smiled and sat back in her chair and crossed her arms across her chest, “Jackie Carter-Brown,” she announced, “your new life starts today!”

0=0=0=0

Ray Doyle sat in the garden of The Chequers Pub in Loose* village, and read the Sunday paper as he drank a pint of the pub’s best ale. It was nice to be away from the school, he’d never imagined he would have got fed up of being surrounded by women and girls, but sometimes it was nice to be in the manlier atmosphere of the village pub. He could ignore the few tourist families that sat with their ill behaved brats and spoilt the quiet of this beautiful sunny afternoon. If one of the little horrors got too close they could always fall into the river which ran by the garden, by accident of course.

Doyle smiled to himself and turned the page of his newspaper. After letting Kennedy disappear for the rest of the day, Doyle had cleared up the expended brass casings from the quarry floor and slowly made his way back to school. Up in his study he had stripped and cleaned the pistol, Kennedy must learn to do this in future, and then put the weapon back in its hiding place. He had glanced out of the window to see the sun shining down brightly on the roofs of the school and decided to take a slow walk down to the pub.

As he finished reading a story about the latest political scandal, politicians would never learn, he sensed someone sit down on the chair opposite him. He tried to ignore the intruder.

“Come on Doyle wake up!” the voice was laced with sarcasm.

“Piss off Bodie,” Doyle kept on reading the newspaper, “I don’t work for the government any-more.”

“No,” replied Bodie nonchalantly, “you work at a school full of young attractive teenage girls and their frustrated teachers…how’s that working out for you?”

Doyle put down his paper and looked across at the grinning face of his one time partner. There was no mistaking Bodie, he might be a little thicker round the waist and his hair might be a bit thin on top and grey around the edges, but it was still the old, devil-may-care lecher that he’d worked with all those years ago.

“Get your mind out of the gutter for a moment Bodie,” Doyle sighed and folded up his newspaper, “to what do I owe the dubious honour of a visit from the Controller of CI5? And before you ask I’m not coming back to work for you, I’m happy where I am.”

“So would I be!” Bodie took a swing from his glass of beer as he looked pointedly at the group of girls who walked along the path by the river.

“Oh don’t be disgusting,” Groaned Doyle, “you’re old enough to be their father…in fact you could be the father of one or two of them!”

“You mean they have my natural good looks?” Bodie smiled and turned his profile towards Doyle.

“No!” Doyle picked up his glass, “Because they have the sexual morals of a Stoat!” 

Both men laughed and raised their glasses to each other.

“I take it this isn’t a social visit?” Doyle placed his almost empty glass on the table.

“’Fraid not me old mate,” Bodie replied sadly, “fancy another?” he pointed at Doyle’s glass.

Doyle nodded and watched his friend make his way to the bar.

0=0=0=0


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three.

After a rather depressing tour through Jackie’s selection of street clothes Kennedy sighed and picked out a pair of jeans and a top that didn’t look too awful. The clothes weren’t anything that Christina Aguilera would be caught dead in, but at least Jackie didn’t look like an overweight bag lady in them. Standing over Jackie while she changed Kennedy almost cried at the state of the larger girl’s underwear; sweat stained, too tight bra teamed with chain store ‘grandma panties’. Jackie’s legs were scabbed where she’d cut herself shaving and she’d missed spots, how could the freak screw up hair removal too?

“Why are you doing this?” Jackie’s voice was full of pleading and hopelessness. 

Weighing up her options, Kennedy decided she could tell her the truth. ‘My watcher told me to do it’. No, that was probably not the best way to go...or... ‘I made a bet with my friends’; more believable, but even Kennedy thought that would be cruel, so, that just left lying.

“You’re such a disgrace to the school I had to do something about you!” great, Kennedy thought; how to be cruel and lie at the same time, “Come on,” she said more kindly, “we’ve only got a couple of hours before the shops shut.”

0=0=0=0

Basically Bodie was a rogue, a lovable rogue true but still a rogue. He had run away to sea when he was fifteen or sixteen. Then, as soon as he had been old enough, he had jumped ship and joined the Parachute Regiment after which he spent two years in the SAS. Leaving the army with the rank of Sergeant he had spent some time in Africa as a mercenary. Coming home to Britain he had come to the notice of George Cowley, the head of CI5, he’d been recruited and teamed up with Doyle.

Bodie was ruthless, calculating and willing to take on both criminals and terrorists using their own methods. It was no wonder he’d made the change from Senior Field Officer to Controller so seamlessly; he just treated his political masters the same way as he would any other target and used their methods against them. Doyle smiled at his old friend and shook his head ruefully, wondering how much time Bodie spent digging into the pasts of the Ministers he supposedly served to find their deepest, darkest secrets. 

“All right what can I do for you?” Doyle looked up as Bodie placed the beer in front of him.

“Got something to show you,” Bodie picked up and then opened a briefcase he’d left by his chair.   
He took out a slim government file and placed it on the table in front of him. Opening the file he took out half a dozen ten by eight photographs and handed them to Doyle.

“Do you know these men?” Bodie watched Doyle’s face for any reaction.

Doyle went through the photos carefully; they were obviously surveillance photos taken with a long lens. They showed two well dressed fit young men of Mediterranean appearance arriving at Heathrow airport.

“No,” Doyle handed the photos back to Bodie.

“Well I’d look out for them if I were you,” Bodie smiled knowingly as he raised his glass to his lips. “This one’s,” he placed a photo in front of Doyle having taken a pull at his beer and put down his glass, “Enrico Petrelli, and this one’s,” he placed another photo in front of Doyle, “Luigi Sopranos.”

“Mafia?” Doyle already guessed the answer.

“Yeah,” Bodie sat back in his chair with a satisfied grin on his face; he knew when he’d got Doyle’s interest, “all the way from New York, fine upstanding American citizens. They arrived in the UK on Wednesday…a little bird tells me that they’re interested in one of your pupils.”

Doyle sat up with a start, “Don’t tell me…Kennedy DeSilver.” 

Now it was time for Bodie to look surprised, “How did you know?”

“It just had to be,” Doyle shook his head in despair, why did this have to happen to him? “she’s a girl of interest to my present employers.”

“You mean she’s…” Bodie didn’t have to finish the question, Doyle nodded his head.

“Shit!” breathed Bodie.

“Yeah,” agreed Doyle.

0=0=0=0

The mismatched pair walked through the town’s shopping Mall having just left the local branch of the ‘Superdrug’ pharmacy chain. Okay, the freshly purchased budget personal grooming products might not be the sort that Kennedy was used to but they would do for Jackie.

There was soap for sensitive skin, anti-acne facial scrub, shampoo and conditioner that fixed oily hair problems, two new anti frizz hair combs, anti-perspirant deodorant, wax strips, cotton buds, strawberry flavoured lip gloss, tinted facial moisturiser with added SPF factor and vitamin E, mouthwash, eyebrow tweezers, odour-eater insoles for trainers, and last but not least Kennedy had thrown in a pack of emery boards, planning optimistically for the day Jackie would stop gnawing her nails down to the quick.

The pink smocked, busty, blonde, older teenager on the check-out had given both the school girls an incredulous sneer. Kennedy didn’t care of course, she was self assured enough not to give a crap what some dumb check-out girl thought of her even if she did have a great rack. Jackie had almost run from the store in embarrassment nearly knocking over the sunglasses display in her panic. 

What Kennedy was getting fed up with was the way Jackie flinched away from her every time she turned to say something.

“I’m not gonna hit you,” claimed Kennedy (however much she might want to), Jackie just looked even more terrified, “What? Was I that mean to you back there? That big a bitch?”

They walked on for a few more steps before Jackie replied.

“Yes,” she stopped in the middle of the concourse. 

Kennedy strode on a few paces before she realised Jackie had spoken.

“What?” she turned sharply back towards Jackie, “No way was I a bitch.”

“You were.” Jackie screwed up her courage into a tiny ball, “you’re actually an utter bitch, Kennedy DeSilver, and I hate you,” she lied. “all your pathetic little slights, every pushy shove, each so-called ‘snappy’ put-down in front of that tarty shop girl all I wanted to do was…” Hold you, touch you, kiss you, Jackie wanted to say but instead said, “Die, you made me feel so stupid and ugly. But now you suddenly start being all nice to me and suddenly you want to be my best friend. What am I supposed to think, you schizoid cow?” Jackie was close to tears. “Is this just another of your spiteful little games?”

By now they were both getting very odd looks from the Sunday afternoon shoppers as they passed by; Kennedy opened her mouth to speak, but didn’t know what to say. Oh god! Was I that bad? She thought back to every encounter she could remember having with Jackie, up to and including the previous day; she could hardly remember one! Had this girl meant so little to her that she had made her life miserable without even thinking about it?

‘Neat!’ thought the black hearted Kennedy that until a moment ago she hadn’t realised existed. Maybe this was what Mr Doyle had meant when he said you had to be responsible for your actions; that she had to start to ‘care’ about other people. Kennedy swallowed hard and wondered what she should say.

“Got nothing to say for yourself?” Jackie turned and continued to walk towards the exit.

“No.” Kennedy shrugged more or less to herself.

0=0=0=0

“That’s them.” Luigi pointed to the two girls below.

He and Enrico stood one level up from the two schoolgirls they were watching, as they progressed through the Mall. The two gangsters wore sharp suits, the best that money could buy in New York, and hand made shoes stitched by half blind cobblers in some little back street shoe shop in Milan. The clothing of the youth that stood between them was in sharp contrast to the two men’s fashionable attire.

The youth wore ripped and faded jeans, a dirty t-shirt that had once had a rock-band’s logo on its front. Over this he wore a ‘Hoody’ the uniform of the ne’er-do-well youth of today; basically a tracksuit top with a hood attached. To finish this ensemble of hi-street fashion a baseball cap sat at a jaunty angle on his head.

“Which one do you want taken?” there was something odd about the youth’s voice; it was too deep and ‘croaky’ to belong to someone who couldn’t be more than sixteen.

“The pretty one of course!” Enrico looked skyward for divine help, he hated having to contract work out but they had no local contacts outside of London.

The youth sniffed and smiled evilly.

“Makes no difference to me, man,” he replied insolently, “as long as I get to take her brain when you’ve finished with her I don’t care who I take.”

Both gangsters shivered at the tone of the youth’s voice, neither of them liked having to hire demons; they were, after all, good Catholic boys. They’d both sung in the church choir when they were younger and mixing with hell fiends went against everything they had been taught.

“Are you sure that’s all you want?” Enrico would have been happier if the demon had wanted cash for kidnapping and eventually killing DeSilver’s daughter; that would have made things feel more ‘normal’.

“No, just the brain,” the Demon’s tongue flicked out of it’s mouth and a look of anticipation spread over it’s face, “So no shooting her in the head, right?”

“Yeah right!” the gangsters nodded in unison.

“When will you snatch her?” Luigi wanted to know.

“In my own good time,” chortled the Demon, rubbing its hands together with glee.

“Hey…man,” Enrico hesitated over what he should call this…thing, “we’re on a tight timetable here. We’ve got to be back in New York in no more than a week so…”

“It will be done within the next two or three days,” the Demon was starting to lose his patience with the two humans…maybe one of their brains would do? 

He grinned at the gangsters showing a mouthful of sharp pointed teeth. Both of the gangsters shivered again and decided they’d rather be somewhere else.

“Okay you’ll call us when you’ve got her.” Luigi appeared rather too eager to be going, he took hold of Enrico’s arm and pulled him away from the demon.

The demon nodded his head and smiled again sending the gangsters scurrying along the concourse and out of sight. The fiend, whose name was Herbert ‘Skull Crusher’ Wilson, although it liked to be called ‘Crusher’, watched as the two American’s vanished from sight. He looked back down at where the girls stood. They seemed to be having some sort of argument as they had come to a halt in the middle of the concourse below. Crusher licked his lips in anticipation.

“The pretty one,” he mumbled as he watched the girls.

Yes the pretty one would do nicely; she was a good plump one as well, not like her thin friend. Not only would he get a good sized brain out of her he would be able to render her down and get a good deal of fat out of her to make eggs. Crusher turned and sauntered away, it had things to arrange. As he went he thanked the Hell Gods for delivering such a choice victim into his claws and not the athletic looking, dark haired, girl.

0=0=0=0

“So why are they after Kennedy DeSilver?” Doyle wanted to know as he sipped his beer.

“Apparently,” Bodie placed his elbows on the table and leant closer to Doyle, “her father upset some local Godfather, and they want to punish him.”

“You believe that?” Doyle wanted to know.

“Of course not!” Bodie smiled at his old friend, “This information is coming from our American cousins at the FBI…need I say more?

“You don’t think they’re telling you everything?” exclaimed Doyle in mock shock, “I find that hard to believe!”

“Yeah I know,” agreed Bodie solemnly, “the lack of trust between allies…it’s disgraceful.”

“So you think they’re going to kidnap Miss DeSilver, and use her as leverage to get at her father?”

“I think they’re going to do more than that.” Bodie became serious, he paused before asking a question that had been at the back of his mind for sometime, “Are you sure she has no clue as to what her father does?”

“No idea,” confirmed Doyle.

“What is she?” Bodie shook his head in disbelief, “Terminally thick or something?”

Whatever else you could say about Bodie he didn’t approve of people kidnapping young girls. When the perpetrators were caught, and they most certainly would be, it was unlikely that the case would ever come to court; not if Bodie had any say in it.

“You think they’re going to kill her?” Doyle started to make plans which involved spiriting Kennedy away to a council safe house.

“Eventually,” agreed Bodie with a nod, “I’d like to catch these bastards Doyle, so I’d appreciate you not making this girl of yours disappear.”

“But…!”

“I know, I know,” Bodie held up a hand to forestall Doyle’s objections, “you need to look out for the safety of your girl, right?” 

Doyle nodded his agreement.

“Right,” explained Bodie, “I’ve got surveillance teams ready to move in, and a Snatch Squad ready to take out these wankers when and if they make their move.”

“All I have to do, I suppose, is carry on as normal, right?”

“Got it in one,” Bodie smiled, soon he would have these mafia punks in his hands then he’d teach them a thing or two!

“The thing that worries me most,” Doyle began slowly, “is the thought that there’s going to be a bunch of your randy bastards using hi-powered telescopes to look into the girl’s changing rooms.”

0=0=0=0

It was tea time and Kennedy sat across the table from Jackie. Kennedy’s usual meal time friends had given her some hard looks and made some pointed comments about who she was choosing to sit with these days, she ignored them as best she could. Jackie looked at the plate in front of her; it held an apple, banana and an orange; she looked at Kennedy’s plate and her mouth started to water at the sight of the Chelsea buns and jam doughnuts.

“How come I have to eat this and you get that?” Jackie demanded much to Kennedy’s surprise.

The simple answer, thought Kennedy, was, ‘because I say so’! However, she thought that a little explanation was required.

“When you can run a five mile cross country and finish in the first twenty-five percent you can eat this!” Kennedy bit into a bun, “Until then,” she said round a mouthful of bun, “you get to eat fruit…its good for you.”

Jackie didn’t look happy as she miserably peeled her orange, “Bitch!” she muttered.

“You’ll thank me for it one day,” Kennedy thought she was beginning to sound like her step-mother, “and don’t think you can grease up the kitchen staff and beg them to give you stuff.”

Jackie’s face fell; it was obvious she had been thinking just that, “Cow,” she grumbled quietly as she placed a slice of orange in her mouth, calling Kennedy names didn’t seem to be working, “and why not?”

“I’ve bribed them,” Kennedy smiled triumphantly at Jackie, “so don’t bother.”

Jackie began to fume, she was just about to explode…she could only be pushed so far you know? Then a cold calculating little voice spoke up from the back of her mind. How long had she loved Kennedy DeSilver from afar? Almost from the time she first set eyes on her trim athletic body! Seeing her in the changing rooms almost made the daily humiliation of Gym class worth while.

Now she was being given an opportunity to be with her object of desire and she was sitting here calling her names! Just how stupid was that? Jackie shook her head in self disgust as she bit into her banana. Maybe she could come out ahead of the game this time: maybe, just maybe she would be able to make things work out for her for a change. Jackie smiled at the prospect.

“You know,” Kennedy stopped eating for a moment and looked at Jackie, “when you smile you almost look pretty…apart from the bad hair and the skin of course. You should really try it more often.”

Jackie nearly fainted from the sheer pleasure of being given a compliment.

0=0=0=0

A little later, Kennedy knocked on Mr Doyle’s door; she couldn’t help but turn around to Jackie and try to smarten her up a little.

“Head up,” she ordered, “shoulders back…don’t slouch!”

“COME!” came Doyle’s yell from within.

Kennedy opened the door and pushed Jackie in before her, stepping into Doyle’s study she quickly closed the door behind her.

“What’s the meaning of this?” demanded Mr Doyle, he was sitting at his chair in front of his desk, he didn’t look pleased.

“Umm,” began Kennedy, unusually hesitant, “I was wondering if Jackie here,” she pointed quickly at the only other girl in the room, “could join us when we go training?”

For a moment, Jackie’s brow furrowed as she wondered what sort of training a history teacher did with young teenage girls. Maybe the stories about what Kennedy and Mr Doyle got up to for hours on end were true; she tried to edge herself towards the door but was held in place by Kennedy.

Doyle looked from one girl to the other and said nothing. He knew this girl; she was one of the brightest scholars at the school, very intelligent plus a good deal of common sense, she was, however, socially inept. He’d told Kennedy to get used to ‘caring’ about other people, maybe this was the result. The Council needed new watchers as well as potentials and slayers; maybe he could train this girl to be his assistant. Then there was the kidnap threat to Kennedy, it wouldn’t do any harm for her to have a companion.

“Good idea!” he said much to Kennedy’s shock, “I’ll arrange for you both to share a room, it’ll make training and your extra lessons easier to arrange.”

Extra lessons? Thought Jackie, a thought that was instantly forgotten when another part of her brain realised she was going to share a room with Kennedy DeSilver the love of her life!

“WHAT!” Screeched Kennedy, she on the other hand was not impressed with the idea, “But…but…”

“No doubt, Kennedy, you’ll be wanting to make some life style changes concerning Miss Carter-Brown?” Doyle smiled evilly at the look of horror on Kennedy’s face, “Just think how much easier it’ll be when you’re sharing a room!”

“Please Mr Doyle,” begged Kennedy almost falling to her knees in supplication, “what will my friends say? I have a life outside of…you know…what we do.”

“If you ever become the ‘One’, Kennedy, you’ll be alone then, too,” Doyle turned back to his desk and started to go through his notes for tomorrow’s lessons. “You might as well start getting used to it…you can go now.”

0=0=0=0

After shutting the door behind her Kennedy walked down the corridor outside Doyle’s study in a daze. That hadn’t gone quite as she expected, this would mean social suicide for her now. Maybe she could get her father to send her to another school…in another country…one that had never heard of watchers and slayers. She sighed deeply, if she never became The Slayer after all this she was going to get really annoyed, and that meant someone, somewhere would pay; she glanced meaningfully back at Doyle’s study door.

0=0=0=0

Jackie walked on air as she trailed along behind Kennedy. All her wildest and wettest dreams had come true…she would be living day and, especially night, with the girl of her rather over heated and vivid fantasies. Nothing could spoil her happiness right now and she decided then and there to do everything, and she meant ‘everything’ Kennedy told her to.

0=0=0=0

Sitting back in his chair, Ray Doyle smiled smugly to himself, that had gone quite well. He’d never believed in this ‘Lone Slayer’ thing the Council kept banging on about. A slayer needed more than just her watcher for support, and a watcher couldn’t be expected to do everything for himself. Maybe the time had come to start having ‘Assistant Watchers’, or maybe call them ‘Glancers’ or something, he laughed at his own joke. Didn’t that Summers girl in America have a whole gang of helpers? Surely the Council couldn’t complain if he took on a helper himself?

0=0=0=0


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four.

Jackie’s lungs felt like they were on fire and her heart felt like it was going to explode; she was beginning to think that wishing for something was infinitely better than actually having it happen. Especially if the ‘having’ included abandoning her warm comfy bed on a cold September morning and being forced into her gym things and then dragged around the sports field by the evil, but oh so beautiful Kennedy DeSilver!

“Try to keep up!” called Kennedy as she turned to watch Jackie lumber along behind her.

Kennedy had gone around the field twice before Jackie had even completed one lap; she stopped and watched, hands on hips, legs slightly apart, as Jackie came to a gasping staggering halt.

“Anyone would think you smoked or something,” Kennedy couldn’t believe that anyone could be that unfit, she took hold of Jackie by the arm and started to steer her back toward the school, “Don’t worry, in a week or two you’ll be sprinting ‘round the field!”

“Please,” gasped Jackie, her legs felt like they belonged to someone else because they certainly didn’t want to hold her up. “Please let me die here!”

“No way, Jose,” Kennedy pulled Jackie along like a tug boat pulling a supertanker, “no more back sliding for you!” Kennedy was starting to enjoy herself, “No more skulking at the back during gym…I’m going to be pushing you out to the front, we’ll find something you’re good at…like ‘Putting the Shot’ or something.”

And if anyone laughs at you, Kennedy added to herself, they’ll have me to deal with!

0=0=0=0

Hidden by a thicket of saplings and briers Bobbie Browne and Tim Vaughn, CI5 Officers, watched as the two girls disappeared into the school.

“You’re disgusting, you know that don’t you?” Browne grinned and jabbed her partner in the ribs with a sharp elbow as they lay in their ‘hide’ together.

“Hey, I’m just a red blooded male, you know?” Vaughn turned and grinned back at Browne.

“Yeah an’ they’re fifteen year old school girls.” Browne pointed out.

“The target’s sixteen next week.” Vaughn went back to studying the action on the athletics field through his high powered binoculars.

“Pervert!” Browne elbowed her partner again, Vaughn cried out in pain, “Give me those binos,” ordered Browne, “it’s nearly time for the rest of the girls to get up and I don’t want you to indulge your perverted fantasies any more than necessary.”

Vaughn handed over the binoculars without a fight, “Tea?” he asked reaching for a flask.

“Please.”

0=0=0=0

Kennedy stood outside the shower cubicle, yelling out instructions to the girl under the hot water.

“Now rinse and repeat!” she would leave introducing Jackie to the mysteries of ‘leave in hair treatments’ until another time; along with eyeliner application, matt foundation and a million other freaking things that Jackie should have been taught about years ago.

Kennedy had surreptitiously watched Jackie as she had stepped into the shower; if she lost a few pounds and toned up the rest she’d have quite a good body. A bit bustier that Kennedy normally liked but… Jackie did look pretty when she smiled and who knows maybe Kennedy could grow to like busty girls; and get your head out of the gutter Kennedy DeSilver, she giggled to herself. Got to remain focused on the mission, this could not degenerate into some torrid lesbian make out session. There was too much riding on this, her pride for one.

0=0=0=0

Jackie had felt Kennedy’s eyes on her as she stepped into the shower, and for the first time in her life she actually felt ashamed of the way she looked. How could she ever expect someone like Kennedy to even look at her let alone consider her as a romantic partner looking the way she did?

0=0=0=0

Morning school came and went and Kennedy started to notice how the attitude of her so-called friends was beginning to change towards her. They had been distant and unwilling to talk to her; once or twice Kennedy had noticed them actively trying to avoid her. Maya had been the worst, Kennedy had over heard a few cutting remarks aimed at her, well that would have to be stamped out and soon. Kennedy was many things but she wasn’t a victim. She knew about intimidation, and she knew the best way of bringing it to a halt. It was very difficult to intimidate someone with your head stuck up your own butt! 

“Miss DeSilver!” an authoritative female voice called out from behind her.

Damn it, Kennedy tried to pretend that she had not heard but she wasn’t quick enough to escape the clutches of Mrs McClusky. Mrs McClusky had been the Headteacher at a tough North London Comprehensive before coming to ‘The Park’. Kennedy turned and pasted on her best ‘butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth’ smile.

“Yes Miss?” Kennedy asked as she walked over to where the ‘Head’ stood.

“What’s this I hear about you and Miss Carter-Brown?” Mrs McClusky was not one to beat around the bush; she got straight to the heart of the matter and god help you if she caught you in a lie. “Not your usual choice for social interaction.”

“Umm no Miss,” replied Kennedy wiping the smile from her face and trying her ‘serious face’ instead, “I could see she was floundering socially so I decided to help her out.”

“Very charitable of you,” Mrs McClusky’s eye’s narrowed as she studied the girl in front of her; she didn’t believe a word of it. “Mr Doyle says that you two want to share a room. I have to say I was shocked when he brought up the subject, but given your ‘special circumstances’ I’ve decided, much against my better judgement, to go along with his recommendation.”

“Thank-you Miss,” Kennedy would, one day, make Mr Doyle’s life a misery for that recommendation.

Mrs McClusky bent towards Kennedy and whispered in her ear.

“If I find that this is one of your evil little small minded plots to make that girl’s life worse than it already is,” the teacher hissed, “then, potential slayer or not, and irrespective of what Mr Doyle might have to say on the matter, I will make your remaining time here hell! Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes Miss,” Kennedy started to wonder why everybody had such a low opinion of her motives.

“I’ll be watching you,” warned Mrs McClusky as she turned and walked away.

‘Screw you!’, thought Kennedy as she watched the Head’s back disappear down the corridor.

“I heard that!” called Mrs McClusky over her shoulder.

0=0=0=0

The afternoon passed in the usual round of school lessons and slayer training for Kennedy and an introduction into a new and terrible world to Jackie. Mr Doyle had arranged things so that Kennedy could be excused Home Economics. He reasoned that in the great scheme of things learning to fight demons and vampires was more important than learning how to cater economically for dinner and cocktail parties. 

The whole demons and vampires thing had come as a horrible shock to Jackie…at first. However, after she had had time to digest the news that the story book monsters were real; she had calmly turned to Mr Doyle and announced that it explained an awful lot of the weird things that happened at home! 

For Jackie missing out on Home Economics was no great disappointment. It had always been just another temptation to eat, which as she wasn’t particularly good at cooking also cut down on the number of tummy-aches she developed. While Kennedy exercised with knives and swords, Mr Doyle introduced Jackie to his demonology library. Books, Jackie could understand and was comfortable with, she started to devour them as soon as Mr Doyle left her to go and check on his potential.

0=0=0=0

Jackie watched as Kennedy hung up her clothes in the spare cupboard in what had been her room. The room was meant to accommodate two girls but this was the first time Jackie had ever had a room-mate. She sighed when she saw all the nice things Kennedy had and wished she had the figure to wear clothes like that. 

Calculating how much money she had in her bank account, it was quite a lot because she hardly touched the allowance that was paid in every month by her parents; she fantasized about the shopping trips she would be going on. All the girls at ‘The Park’ referred to these over-inflated allowances as ‘Guilt Money’. Jackie was starting to become of the opinion that it was time to start making her parents ‘pay’ for sending her to this terrible place.

Hanging up the last of her clothes Kennedy shut the cupboard door. It had taken her nearly all evening to move herself from her own single room to this double room. She’d nearly had a fit when she’d seen the state of the room or more precisely the amount of unwashed laundry Jackie seemed to keep at the bottom of her wardrobe. There was really no excuse for it, not only did the school run an efficient laundry service, but there were washing machines for the girls to use by themselves. Kennedy had Jackie bundle up all her dirty clothes and dragged her down to the laundry room and showed her how to use the washing machines.

“Did your mother not explain how to look after yourself?” she had asked, Jackie shook her head sadly. “Didn’t your housekeeper ever give you a few clues about basic self care?” again Jackie looked sad and shook her head.

Kennedy pursed her lips in frustration; her own step-mother was pretty useless in teaching her step-daughter all the stuff a girl needed to know before going out in the big bad world. At least she’d had Maria the Housekeeper. Maria had been more like a mother to Kennedy than her step-mother had ever been. She remembered fondly following Maria around the house ‘helping’ her with her work when she’d been a little girl. It was Maria, Kennedy went to when she was hurt or sad and when she had a secret to share or something good had happened.

Kennedy had cried when she had been sent to England to go to school, her parents had thought it was because she was leaving home for the first time. Kennedy had cried because she was leaving her friend and confidant. She’d cried again when she’d come home on her first vacation from school to find that her parents had ‘let Maria go’. One day she would find her friend again, for now maybe she’d be Jackie’s ‘Maria’. Kennedy wiped away her tears before Jackie came back into the room.

0=0=0=0

Lying in bed Jackie had another of her fantasies destroyed, she had always imagined Kennedy would wear some expensive silk nightdress and those fluffy high-heeled slipper things women seemed to wear in old romantic movies. Instead she wore a pair of old ratty sweat pants, a t-shirt with a faded picture of a cartoon kitten on the front, and Scooby-Doo slippers. Jackie watched as Kennedy kicked off her slippers and climbed into bed.

“Aren’t you frightened?” Jackie asked from under her blankets.

“About what?” Kennedy wriggled down the bed and tried to get comfortable.

“About having to fight all those monster things,” explained Jackie.

“There’s no guarantee I’ll ever be the slayer,” Kennedy turned onto her side to face Jackie in the darkness of their room. “The present slayer’s been going for three or four years now; and there’s another one active somewhere. They’ve both got to die before I have a chance of being chosen.”

“But slayers don’t seem to last long,” Jackie sat up in bed and looked down at where Kennedy lay, “doesn’t that scare you?”

“I’m more worried about what I’ll do with my life if I’m not chosen,” Kennedy yawned, “Old Doylie says that if you’re not chosen by the time you’re eighteen that’s it! I don’t know what I’ll do then.” Kennedy pulled the blankets up around her shoulders, “Anyway time to get some sleep…remember we’ve got to be up at six o’clock to go for a run.”

“Do we have to?”

“Yes!”

For a moment silence descended on the room.

“’Night Kennedy.”

“’Night Jackie.”

Jackie turned over and added ‘hero worship’ to the bad case of unrequited love she was now suffering from.

0=0=0=0

“Just like Northern Ireland,” Clifford whispered to his partner Hammond; they were the two CI5 officers on duty that night.

The two men were both ex-army and had done their fair share of tours in Northern Ireland. Neither of them had ever really expected to find themselves out on a ‘lurk’ in the English countryside like they had done in Ulster. Clifford tried to get himself comfortable and put his eye to the eyepiece of the Starlight Scope that rested on its tripod in front of him, he checked his watch.

“Twenty-two-thirty hours,” he announced, “and all our little girlies are in bed…lights goin’ off,” he adjusted the position of the scope, “There goes the caretaker checking the doors and windows.”

Hammond lay next to his comrade making notes in a notebook, yes, he thought, it was just like Ulster…cold, uncomfortable and boring.

“At least we don’t have to watch out for PIRA gunmen sneaking up on us,” he laughed quietly at a memory, “Remember that time down in ‘Bandit Country’ when we set up fifty yards behind that sniper?”

“Yeah,” Clifford smiled in the darkness, “I’ll never forget the look on his face when we nabbed him!”

The two agents laughed quietly at the memory of the PIRA gunman’s face when they had both jumped out at him.

“Hold on!” Clifford put his eye to the scope again he had seen movement over by the school, “That’s not right,” he studied the school for a minute, “I’ve got two figures sneaking about in the bushes over by the conservatory door, they look like they’re trying to get in.”

“Control this is four-nine, contact, over,” Hammond spoke into the mouth piece of his radio.

“Go ahead four-nine,” Control’s voice crackled over the radio.

“Contact, now!” Hammond spoke quickly and quietly into his radio, “Two intruders by the conservatory door west side of the building. They appear to be trying to gain entry, I am observing, over.”

“Roger, four-nine, leave it to us. Out.” The radio went quiet as Control signed off.

0=0=0=0

Jeff and Steven Robinson were brothers who went to college on the other side of Maidstone. They had ridden their motor scooters here tonight to meet their girlfriends. They had waited until after ‘lights out’ before approaching the building across the sports field; and hidden as they had been instructed by Stephanie and Daphne. They had expected a little ‘heavy petting’ tonight nothing more. Neither had expected to be pounced on by six large black clad figures that had appeared out of the darkness, and stuck guns in their faces. After a very short struggle they were dragged off into the night.

0=0=0=0

Crusher watched from the cover of some bushes as the two youths were dragged away by the commandos. He scratched his scaly chin with one long talon and reassessed the situation. Those two overdressed fools who had hired him hadn’t mentioned that the ‘pretty girl’ was being watched by the security services. Crusher knew that in Britain the security services were quite aware of the existence of demons and vampires, and were quite willing to deal violently with any threat from the creatures of the night.

Creeping into the school and snatching the girl from her bed was no longer an option, he would need a new plan. But there were time constraints, not only from the goons who had hired him, but Crusher would need the girl before the end of the week. Crusher sighed and started to move slowly away from the school. He’d survived so long while all around him his fellow demons had fallen to the bullets, blades and stakes of the security services because he was careful and planned things well in advance; he didn’t like to be hurried. He slipped off into the night as he thought up new plans and discarded them almost as quickly. He would bide his time, well for at least twenty-four hours before he struck; then the voluptuous teenager would be his!

0=0=0=0

Lying in bed next to Margaret McClusky Doyle stared up at the ceiling, she might be forty-five but she was still a handsome woman and a ‘right little goer’ in the sack, he laughed at his own outdated mode of speech.

“What are you laughing about?” demanded Margaret as she rolled over and placed her arm across Ray’s chest.

“Nothing,” replied Doyle lazily, “I was just thinking about the old days.”

“When you and that friend of yours…what’s his name?”

“Bodie,” Doyle supplied.

“Yes Bodie,” there was just a hint of disapproval in Margaret’s voice, “when you used to chase villains around London in that Capri of yours.”

“It was Bodie’s,” Doyle corrected, “and it was a good car.”

“A death-trap don’t you mean?” she rolled away from Ray and looked at her bedside clock, “Ray?”

“What?” Doyle really wished he had a cigarette.

“About Kennedy DeSilver and her new friend.”

“Do we have to talk about this now?” Ray wondered why he was craving a cigarette right now; it had been years since he’d smoked.

“Look, Ray, I just wish you wouldn’t recruit my girls without asking me first,” Margaret poked Ray in the ribs without warning.

“Ow!” Ray rolled over and tried to pin his lover’s arms down, “I’ll remember for next time.”

“Talking of the next time…” Margaret pulled Ray down on top of her.

0=0=0=0

Lying in bed Jackie listened to her rumbling tummy, it complained loudly that it was suffering from too much exercise and too little food. Listening to Kennedy’s slow and steady breathing, she must be asleep by now. Jackie started to get quietly out of bed; she had a stash of snacks hidden in the bottom of her wardrobe.

“Don’t you dare!” called Kennedy softly from out of the darkness, Jackie froze with one foot on the cold floor, “Anyway I found all your junk food stashes and trashed them.”

Jackie moaned softly as she pulled her leg back under the warm covers.

“Now wait till breakfast and go back to sleep.”

Jackie obediently lay down and pulled her blankets up around her ears, how could she wait until breakfast when she was starving now? Rolling over she turned her back on Kennedy. Her eye’s slowly closed she fell asleep and dreamed of her cruel, but oh so beautiful mistress.

0=0=0=0


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five.

Kennedy ran easily around the edge of the sports field and breathed in the crisp early morning air. Having woken up just before six, as she normally did, she’d leapt out of bed only to stumble and fall onto Jackie’s bed due to the unfamiliar surroundings of her new room. Even with Kennedy landing right on top of her it had taken Kennedy nearly five minutes to rouse Jackie from her slumbers. Another five minutes had been required for Kennedy to actually get the reluctant girl out of her bed. This achievement eventually only occurred due to Kennedy up ending Jackie’s bed and dumping her on the floor. It had taken several more minutes of coxing, cajoling and threatening Jackie into her running things. By the time the two girls had got down to the playing field it was nearly half past six, this was about fifteen minutes behind Kennedy’s normal schedule. 

As usual Kennedy and Jackie started off together, but Jackie soon fell behind, this meant Kennedy had to keep looking behind her as she ran to keep an eye on the other girl and make sure she wasn’t slacking. Eating up the ground with long easy strides, Kennedy caught her second wind and started to enjoy her early morning exercise; she liked these bright cold crisp mornings, they really helped to wake you up. Glancing over her shoulder; yes there was Jackie lumbering along huffing and puffing as she ran, any minute now, Kennedy thought, she’d break into an exhausted walk and she’d have to yell at her…again.

Thinking about the weather again Kennedy sighed resignedly as she thought what tomorrow might bring. Tomorrow, instead of being clear and bright might well be hot and muggy, or lashing down with rain. This time of the year you could get all four seasons in one day, Kennedy smiled to herself at the thought of getting Jackie to run in the snow. Turning along the first corner of the field; this would make Jackie easier to keep an eye on as Kennedy wouldn’t need to crane her head round to see her running partner, she looked but couldn’t see Jackie. Surprised Kennedy turned and jogged backwards for a yard or two before coming to a confused halt, Jackie was nowhere to be seen.

“ **Jackie**!” Kennedy’s eyes started to flash with anger as she looked around the field. “Stop messing about and get out here...” there was no sound or movement, “...right this minute!” Demanded Kennedy as she started to retrace her steps, surely the big, fat loser couldn’t have chickened out already?

Kennedy started to feel the anger build up in her chest as she jogged along retracing her steps, she stopped at a spot where she could remember seeing Jackie last. Looking down at the dew heavy grass she could see her own foot prints from where she had run passed this point. Then there were her other prints as she came back to look for Jackie, and then there were Jackie’s prints. Shorter spaced than Kennedy’s had been and more erratic from where the overweight girl had staggered as she ran. Kennedy followed the marks in the wet grass until she came to a scuffed over area that looked as if there had been a struggle, she gasped and looked around.

“ **JACKIE**?” She cried this time in concern, her earlier anger mostly forgotten.

Following the prints across the grass to where the mown grass joined the taller grass and weeds next to the hedge that surrounded the field, the trail led to a gap in the hedge.

“Oh no!” Kennedy started to follow the tracks all the time imagining the terrible fate that had befallen Jackie.

As she picked her way through the long grass and weeds Kennedy was vaguely aware of the sound of running feet and heavy breathing behind her. Turning to confront the kidnappers who were obviously not satisfied with just taking Jackie and had come back for a, lets face it, more attractive victim. She saw two men in camouflaged clothes run towards her, she was resolved that they wouldn’t take her easily…she’d make them fight and if at all possible, suffer for their actions.

0=0=0=0

Inspector Morris had long dreaded this day, she’d always known it would happen eventually. If you had a school full of the daughters of the very rich on your ‘patch’ it was inevitable that one day one of them would get kidnapped. Looking across the wide gravelled car-park to the front of the school she saw that the area was packed with police vehicles and officers rushing around in seeming chaos. In all her years as a beat officer and later as a detective Nora Morris had never quite understood why you needed so many police at the crime scene; surely they just got in each other’s way.

There was the dog unit; they’d be trying to pick up the trail left by the kidnappers and their victim. Then there were half a dozen or so detectives taking statements from staff and pupils that would probably all boil down to ‘I didn’t see anything’, but you had to try. Next there were the forensic boys trying to find any clues inadvertently left behind, they’d likely find nothing of use other than to prove someone was there after she’d caught them. It was all the uniforms wandering about that puzzled her; it wasn’t as if the Academy was in the public eye…there were no crowds to hold back. ‘Oh well’ she thought, ‘I expect I can find something for them to do’.

She crunched her way across the car park and called out for her assistant.

“Sergeant Hudson!” she called wearily, the younger officer ran over to her in a spray of loose gravel, he slid to a halt next to her.

“Tell me the worst then,” she stopped and turned to survey the organised chaos around her again as Hudson consulted his note book.

“At about six-forty-five this morning,” Hudson began reading from his note book, “Two girls, a Kennedy DeSilver and one Jackie Carter-Brown were out on an early morning run. The DeSilver girl glanced round to see were her friend was and found that the Carter-Brown girl had vanished. Apparently she did a quick search for her friend and that’s were it gets confusing.”

“Confusing?” Morris looked her Sergeant squarely in the eye before asking, “How so?”

“There seems to be some sort of security operation going on,” Hudson whispered conspiratorially, “Two ‘operatives’ jumped out of the bushes and tried to drag the DeSilver girl off to safety.”

“Tried?”

“Yes Boss,” Hudson smirked as he continued his report, “Seems she gave one of ‘em a black eye and bit the other.”

“Bit?”

“Yeah,” Hudson grinned broadly, “On the hand Boss, straight through a leather glove!”

Morris tried to hide her own smile.

“Is that her over there?” the Inspector pointed to where a dark haired girl in a track suit stood sullenly with her hands handcuffed behind her back, “Seems like an honest mistake to make,” mused the detective, “Just who do these ‘Operatives’ belong to, Special Branch? MI5? The Salvation Army?”

“CI5 ma’am,” Hudson suddenly became more formal; his Boss had a history with CI5.

“Bodie!” Morris muttered darkly, “I should have known.”

Morris strode off towards where the girl in the handcuffs stood, there seemed to be some sort of argument going on around her. On one side there was a middle-aged man and woman, obviously teachers from the school. They were arguing that the girl should be released immediately. On the other side were two men in camouflaged clothing; one of whom sported an impressive black eye while the other nursed his hand which had been roughly bandaged with a field dressing. They were arguing that the girl should stay in their custody until their boss showed up.

“Right then!” Inspector Morris burst onto the scene bringing the argument to an abrupt halt, she turned to the woman who seemed to be in charge of the non-camouflaged contingent, “Who are you?”

“I’m Mrs McClusky,” replied the head teacher, “I’m the Headmistress here and this is the Head of my History Department Mr Doyle.” 

Mrs McClusky gestured to the fifty-something man standing beside her. Morris gave him a hard stare, he looked vaguely familiar but she couldn’t place him…not just yet anyway. The McClusky woman she knew about, by all reports she was an efficient teacher and administrator well respected within the teaching community.

“I must insist that my pupil is released immediately!” Mrs McClusky continued while Mr Doyle stood just behind her looking uncomfortable.

“Of course she should,” agreed Inspector Morris, she turned to the two commandos and glared at them, “Release her…” the two CI5 officers glanced at each other before one of them opened his mouth to speak, but he didn’t get a chance, “…now!”

The cuffs were removed and the girl was ushered into the school building, Inspector Morris turned to the two CI5 people and told them she wanted to see their superior as soon as he arrived. Then guiding Hudson by the elbow she walked quickly away to where her own car was parked.

“Doyle!” Morris slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand, “Of course! I knew I remembered him from somewhere…”

“Ma’am?” Hudson and Morris stopped next to the car and looked back across the car park at the commandos who now stood self-consciously surrounded by uniformed officers.

“And where there’s one,” Continued Morris as if she hadn’t heard her assistant, “The other can’t be too far away.”

“Who ma’am?” Hudson tried again.

“Bodie and Doyle,” she replied as if that explained everything, this just got a blank look from her sergeant. “Bodie and Doyle,” Morris said again this time in a slightly more calculating tone, “Couple of cowboys who were in CI5 back in the old days.” The Inspector paused deep in thought, “I knew Bodie had been promoted, but Doyle had disappeared a few years ago. Then the first time he pops back onto the scene it’s at a kidnapping where there’s two CI5 agents lurking in the bushes…you mark my words Angus, there’s more to this than meets the eye.”

“I’m sorry, boss, I don’t follow.” Hudson shrugged his shoulders in confusion.

“You don’t need to… not yet.” Morris informed him, “Now tell me about this girl who was kidnapped. Have we got a photo, do we know what her parents do for a living?”

“Here.” Hudson passed Morris a photo.

“Hmmm,” Morris considered the picture, “Not the most attractive of young women. Her parents?”

“Carter’s Agro Industries,” Hudson watched his Boss for any sign of recognition, “Mother Brown’s Pies?” He added.

“Really?” A disgusted look crossed Morris’ face, she had obviously tried one of the old lady’s pies, “Right, we’ll tell the press that the daughter of a well-known food producer has been kidnapped, we’ll say we suspect Eco-terrorists…”

“We do?” Asked Hudson somewhat surprised.

“No, but it’ll do for now,” Morris started to move towards the school’s front door, “But now I want to interview that DeSilver girl, anything known?”

Hudson consulted his note book flipping over a page or two as he followed his boss.

“Nothing much,” he said after a moment or two, “she’s American.”

“Ah-ha!” Exclaimed Morris as she plunged into the school’s hall.

0=0=0=0

Waking up Jackie found herself lying on a warm stone floor in a dark room trying to sit up she banged her head against the low ceiling.

“Ow!” she cried out miserably as she rubbed her head.

Very quickly Jackie realised that someone had put her into a small (about three foot by three foot) stone built room or cupboard. They had taken her glasses and her clothes, which didn’t matter at the moment because it was so dark in this little cell that she couldn’t see anyway, but on the plus side it was pleasantly warm so she wasn’t going to freeze to death. For a moment that made her feel better…but only for a moment.

A quick fingertip search of the cell (as she had decided to call it) revealed a metal door about eighteen inches square with a narrow flap in the middle of it. Jackie hoped this meant that someone would feed her, which might mean that they wanted to keep her alive. The only other thing she found was a hole about three inches across in the middle of the floor. Struggling to turn herself round Jackie eventually got her ear to the hole and listened. Far away she could hear running water, and her noise caught a whiff of disinfectant and sewers, this must be her toilet arrangements. Jackie’s noise crinkled up in disgust.

“Ew,” she sighed quietly.

Sitting up again, she wedged herself into one corner of the cell and wrapped her arms around herself and brought her knees up to her chest. Her prison was too small to stand up in and too short for her to lie down properly. The scientific part to her mind told her that very soon cramp was going to be a problem. The frightened teenaged girl part of her mind wanted to know what was going to happen to her. Lacking any hard evidence her imagination started to fill in her possible future, needless to say it didn’t involve puppies and kittens or even boxes of chocolates. Whimpering wretchedly to herself she wished someone was here with her…well not in this cell exactly but in one a bit bigger. With maybe an electric light and a soft bed, a window would be nice too, Jackie wiped at a tear that had started to roll down her cheek.

“Stop that blubbering,” she ordered herself sniffing and wiping her face with the back of her hand, her father had always said that crying was a sign of weakness and nobody loved a cry-baby.

“And what would Kennedy say?” Jackie asked aloud.

Silently she answered herself, something cutting and hurtful. A little voice at the back of her mind told her that no one cared about her and no one would bother looking for her. Kennedy would be glad that she’d disappeared, as would everyone else! She was useless, no one loved her not even her parents and everyone would breathe a sigh of relief when they found her pasty bloated corpse.

A sob escaped Jackie’s throat, and tears ran down her face again as visions of her pallid dead body lying in a ditch somewhere filled her mind, followed by her funeral where no one turned up. She was just about to burst into full blown cries of misery and despair when she heard something move outside her cell. Quickly Jackie sniffed herself into silence as the door to her little world was unlocked. Hope entered her heart, maybe someone had come for her after all, maybe Kennedy had come for her or the police had arrived to rescue her. Blinded by the light that flooded into the cell just before, cold, rough hands reached in and dragged her out of her cell into a much larger room.

0=0=0=0

Doyle walked out of the front door, down the steps and across the car park in front of the school. He paused to survey the now deserted car park before walking over to the black government limousine that was the only vehicle parked in front of the school. As he approached the car the rear door opened and he got in. Making himself comfortable he turned to speak to the car’s passenger.

“Well,” Doyle massaged the bridge of his noise, “that didn’t go very well.”

“Not one of the greatest of days in the history of CI5,” agreed Bodie, “or the Council of Watchers come to that.”

“You’re not wrong,” Doyle sighed heavily, “did your people see anything?”

“Unfortunately they were watching your girl,” Bodie shifted in his seat and glanced out of the window as if looking for someone or something, “they didn’t notice anything wrong until the DeSilver girl stopped and turned ‘round…what about your girl?”

“Didn’t see anything more than she told the local Plod*,” Doyle joined Bodie in looking out of the car windows, “What are you looking for?” he demanded mystified by his friend’s actions.

“You sure she’s not holding anything back?” Bodie sat back in his seat seemingly satisfied at something.

“No,” Doyle cast one last look around the car before relaxing himself, “I’ve known her long enough to know when she’s lying…just what’s wrong with you? Got a dose of crabs or something?”

Bodie gave a short bitter laugh, “Chance would be a fine thing!”

“Feeling your age?” Doyle asked studying his friend’s face closely and realising that Bodie only reflected what he felt like at times.

“Yeah,” Bodie admitted with a sigh, “anyway, didn’t you recognise her?”

“Who?” 

“The local Inspector…what was her name again?” Bodie asked.

“Morris? What about her?” Doyle wracked his memory for any clue as to what Bodie was going on about.

“That’s her,” Bodie snapped his fingers before pulling out his mobile phone; “you didn’t recognise her at all?”

“No!” Doyle was starting to get exasperated with Bodie, “Now what are you going on about?”

“Hold on,” Bodie held up his finger for quiet and spoke into his phone, “Bodie here, get me the file on an Inspector Nora Morris, Kent CID, have it sent down to me, soonest.”   
Without another word he clicked off the phone and put it away.

“I wish you’d tell me what’s going on,” Doyle muttered.

“As you’ve pointed out you don’t work for the government any-more, Doyle,” Bodie was enjoying winding Doyle up, however, a look at Doyle’s face reminded him that he could only push his friend so far “Do you remember, what…fifteen or twenty years ago a certain DC Nora Morris?”

Doyle’s face was blank for a while as his mind rolled back the years before the light of recognition lit up his eyes.

“Of course!” he cried slapping his forehead, “I remember now,” a grin spread across his face, “the Christmas Party…”

“The ‘Cow’s’ office…” nodded Bodie.

“The carpet burn…”

“The bill for getting the stain out…”

“The surprise package nine months later.”

“I wondered why she was looking at me funny,” Doyle said thoughtfully as he shook his head now all the details were coming back to him.

“You don’t suppose she’s still holding a grudge do you?” Bodie asked innocently.

0=0=0=0

Plod: A rather unflattering name for the local police given to them by more ‘exciting’ branches of the police and security services. From ‘Mr Plod the policeman’ in the Noddy cartoons and books. 


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six.

For a moment Jackie didn’t know where she was, but then, as her eyes got accustomed to the dark she saw she was in her bedroom at home. She rolled over in her bed and snuggled up to her old cuddly toy cat that she’d had since she was…well, forever. What would she do today? Maybe she’d go into the local town and do some shopping, or maybe she’d go down to the river and sketch something. Sighing contentedly she felt the soft warmth of her duvet against her skin; she could lie here all day and no one would care. Suddenly her bedroom door opened and light flooded into the room, her bed didn’t feel soft and comfortable any more, it was hard and rough. Through blurred eyes she could just make out the grey scaly hand that reached into her cell and clamped itself around her ankle.

“NO!” Jackie cried as she was pulled roughly through the tiny door, “Please no! Not again!” she begged.

The creature didn’t care if its victim got stuck in the door; it just pulled harder until she came free. Falling onto the wooden floor of what must have been the cellar of some old house she was dragged across the uneven boards to the chair. With hardly any effort the creature picked Jackie up and threw her into the chair where it tied her hands to the arms and her ankles to the legs. 

Jackie didn’t know how long she had been in the cellar, it seemed like days but she couldn’t be certain. At first she had tried to fight but the creature was too strong, she had begged and pleaded but the creature never said a word, it just kept on with whatever it was it was doing. To begin with Jackie had thought it was going to rape her but it didn’t. Whatever the creature was doing to her was worse than that…slowly inch by inch the creature was consuming her. Jackie’s analytical mind still tried to puzzle out how the creature was doing it but the effects were plain to see; Jackie was getting thinner and thinner after every ‘meal’.

Her head rolled from side to side against the back of the chair as she waited for it to begin again; the prehensile tube grew slowly from the creature’s stomach and slid its way across her legs until it clamped itself to her belly. Jackie writhed as the tip of the tube latched on to her with tinny sharp hooks that dug into her flesh, she whimpered quietly, she knew what was going to happen next. Why hadn’t someone come for her? Her tortured mind asked; the answer came from a dark corner of her brain, because you’re worthless and unloved and no one cares, it sneered cruelly. Then the pain hit her.

Jackie screamed and fought against her bonds, her body jerking spasmodically as she tried reflexively to get away from the pain that seemed to be tearing her insides out. Her skin felt as if it was on fire and her throat was raw from her own screaming. As she passed out she seemed to see herself tried to the chair as the creature sucked out her very flesh, it was then that she realised that no one would ever come, she was going to die here.

0=0=0=0

Inspector Morris put down the telephone and dry scrubbed her face with her hands, sighing heavily 

he looked across her office to where Hudson worked at a computer terminal.

“Angus,” she said despondently, “if I ever start going on about how these ‘poor little rich girls’ have it easy; you have my full permission to kick me!”

“Ma’am?” Hudson looked up from his work a puzzled smile on his lips.

“Do you know who that was,” Morris gestured to the phone on her desk, Hudson shook his head, “That was the solicitor for the Carter-Brown family. Apparently our kidnap victim’s parents are too busy to break off their business trip, and all questions concerning Jackie Carter-Brown are to be put through him.”

“What!?!?” Astonished Hudson pushed his chair away from his desk as if he was going to hunt down the unfortunate girl’s parents right there and then. Morris waved him back into his seat.

“Yeah I know,” she nodded her head sadly, “if she was the daughter of some council estate slobs, we’d be arresting them on charges of neglect just about now. But she’s not, she goes to a nice expensive school, and no doubt has nice things, so she must be well cared for…right?” The inspector went silent for a moment before asking, “What have you found out?”

Hudson settled himself back in front of computer screen and moved the mouse around before beginning to speak.

“Jackie Carter-Browne, aged fifteen,” he began reading from the screen, “not your most attractive or popular girl. Headmistress says she’s very bright and has hopes for her to go on to Oxford or Cambridge. No friends; or at least no one who’ll admit to being friends with her…”

“What about that DeSilver girl?” Nora rested her chin on her fist as she looked across to where Hudson worked, “She seemed to be out with the girl.”

“Um, the Head says that’s a work in progress…her words.”

Morris raised an eyebrow, inviting Hudson to continue speaking.

“Mrs McClusky doesn’t know if it’s a genuine friendship, or some sort of project, or some nasty little joke that DeSilver and her friends are playing on the Carter-Brown girl.”

“You don’t suppose that…” Morris stopped herself in mid thought: no that wouldn’t make any sense. “No she wouldn’t do that not with all these CI5 people watching the place…this DeSilver girl did she know that she was being watched.”

“No boss,” Hudson consulted his notebook, “only the Head and that Mr Doyle knew what was going on.”

“And what is going on?” Morris wanted to know, “You know what I think?” Hudson shook his head as his boss began to speak again, “I think the kidnappers were after DeSilver and the wrong girl got snatched…I think as soon as the kidnappers realise their mistake this is going to turn into a murder inquiry.” Morris paused for breath before issuing her orders. “Call the Assistant Chief Constable, I what to know everything these CI5 people know about DeSilver, have we any leads?”

“No boss,” Hudson picked up his phone and started to dial, “Dogs couldn’t find a trail, and forensics came up empty…it’s like they vanished into thin air.”

0=0=0=0

Enrico and Luigi walked up to the front of what had once been a grand Victorian town house and knocked on the door. As they waited they looked around. The house, the street even, was in dire need of redevelopment, paint peeled from the door and window frames, the few cars in the street looked old and beat up and rubbish lay in piles on the pavements.

“What a shit hole,” breathed Luigi quietly as they waited for the door to be opened.

“Pity,” mused Enrico, always the more business orientated of the two, “you could buy these places cheap and refurbish them, then make a killing selling them to young professionals.”

“What?” Luigi looked at his friend and shook his head in despair, they were supposed to be gangsters not property developers; he patted the gun under his jacket as if to reassure himself of the fact.

“I was just saying…” began Enrico as the door opened and Crusher pocked his head around the edge of the door.

“Yessss?” asked the demon.

Both Enrico and Luigi took a step back at the sight of the demon who looked more demon-like than he had on their previous meetings. His skin looked more scale-like and grey, his fingers looked more like talons and his ears had a pronounced point to them. Luigi patted his gun again as if seeking comfort from its presence. He breathed a sigh of relief remembering how he’d ‘persuaded’ a local priest to bless the bullets…just in case.

Quickly the two Americans were ushered into the house and along a narrow corridor until they stood in front of an open door that led down into the cellar. Enrico produced a digital camera from under his jacket.

“All we have to do is take a few photos of the girl,” he explained, “then we’ll be on our way and you can do whatever you like to her.”

Crusher nodded his head as his tongue flicked out and tasted the air, “Come,” he said and led the two gangsters down into the cellar.

At the bottom of the stairs Luigi and Enrico found themselves in a large brightly lit room that reminded them both of a torture chamber. There were chains hanging from the white washed brick walls and a number of devices whose only purpose could be inflicting pain on some helpless victim stood about the room. Right in the middle of the room directly under a very bright and hot lamp stood a heavy wooden chair that was bolted firmly to the floor. Tied by her wrists and ankles to the chair sat the naked girl that the gangsters were here to take pictures of. She slumped in the chair her head hanging down with her hair covering her face. Enrico gave Luigi a disgusted look; he’d never liked torturing people. Killing them was one thing, making a young girl suffer like this was a completely different ball of wax. Luigi walked over to the girl, as he got closer to her he noticed what looked like burn marks on the girl’s torso. As he reached out to take the girl’s hair in his hand his nose wrinkled up at the smell.

“Oh man,” he looked back at Crusher in disgust, “what you been doin’ to her? She’s crapped herself!”

“It was my understanding,” replied Crusher from where he sat on one of the torture machines, “that you didn’t care what I did as long as you got your pictures before I killed it.”

“Yeah well…” replied Luigi uneasily as he pulled back on the girl’s hair and looked into her face.

0=0=0=0

Jackie felt someone pull on her hair and jerk her head back, she moaned as her head was banged against the back of the chair. Licking her dry and chapped lips she tried to concentrate on the blur in front of her. Hope started to rise in her heart when she realised that it wasn’t her tormentor, it was someone in a suit…someone had come to rescue her!

“Help me,” she croaked quietly just before whoever it was let go of her hair and her head fell back onto her chest.

“YOU ASSHOLE!” raged Luigi as he turned to confront the demon, “you snatched the wrong girl!”

0=0=0=0

Bodie flicked through the surveillance photo’s until he found the one he wanted. He took it out of the pile he held in his hand and placed it on his desk in front of Cheshire, one of his lead operatives. Bodie taped the image of the youth that stood between the two gangsters with his finger.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

“Local thug, Sir,” replied Cheshire, “goes by the name of Crusher.”

“And what’s he doing with our two boyos here?” Bodie turned the photo around and studied the image of the youth closely.

“Abbot and Costello,” Cheshire smiled as he used the two American thugs’ nicknames, “seem to be using him as a local go between.”

“And you know this because you’ve had him taken in for questioning?” Bodie looked up at Cheshire; he already knew what the answer was going to be.

“W-well,” Cheshire stammered and looked a little lost, “I…I mean we…didn’t think he was that important.”

Bodie sprang up from behind his desk.

“Everything’s fuckin’ important,” he explained sharply, “one girl’s missing another is still under threat and you didn’t think it was important to question the local ‘fixer’ for the two goons who are the prime suspects?”

“But sir,” Cheshire tried to explain, “he’s strictly small time, he…”

“Bring him in,” Ordered Bodie, “where does he live?”

“Council Estate out Allington way,” explained Cheshire quickly, “he lives there with his Mum and Dad.”

“Get a team out there pronto,” instructed Bodie as he glanced at his watch, “if you’re lucky you should still catch him in bed!”

0=0=0=0

“I thought you didn’t believe in magic,” Kennedy stood, arms crossed over her chest at the edge of the sports field where Jackie had been snatched.

Doyle cast around himself with some evil smelling orange powder that he scattered on the grass around where Jackie had disappeared.

“This isn’t magic,” he explained as he threw another handful of orange dust up into the air and watched where it fell, “it’s a sort of different forensic science.”

“Hmmm,” Kennedy nodded her head disbelievingly, “looks like magic to me.”

Doyle glanced at his potential and gave her a wry smile, there was no fooling this one, he thought.

After all the excitement of the morning the police had quickly vanished from the scene leaving only a couple of uniformed officers at the school. Bodie and his people had hurriedly vanished the moment the first newspaper reporters turned up at the school. Lessons had been cancelled for the day and counsellors had been called in to deal with any cases of post traumatic stress. Kennedy had not availed herself of their services even after it had been strongly hinted that she should…she didn’t really understand why she should be feeling stressed. Every fibre of her being was telling her to ‘do’ something and that sitting around talking about her non-existent feelings of guilt was not going to help.

Kennedy had told herself she had nothing to feel guilty about. If anything she felt angry, this had happened right under her noise. A girl that she had sort of made herself responsible for had been taken by something that was so obviously after her. Clearly the kidnappers had no taste if they couldn’t tell the difference between her; fit, healthy, stylish Kennedy DeSilver, and, sluggy, slobby, fashion deficient JCB. It was almost an insult…in fact it was an insult! How dare they, Kennedy raged to herself, how dare they mistake her for a fat, pathetic, loser like Jackie!

It was with these feelings of righteous indignation bubbling up in her chest, and nothing to do with the fact that she was worried about the tubby girl, that Kennedy found herself knocking on Mr Doyle’s door just after lunch. Where would it end, she asked herself as she waited for the door to open, kidnappers going ‘round taking the wrong girl. How would she live it down? Someone had mistaken JCB for her…this was terrible!

0=0=0=0

Doyle had spent the afternoon making phone calls, first to the Watchers Council and then to his contacts in the security services. The council had informed him that the whole sorry affair was none of his business and he should look to the safety of his potential first and foremost. They had also wanted to know why he had not moved Kennedy to a ‘safe house’ as soon as he had heard that there was a threat to her life or freedom. After all her father was a very important friend of the council (this translated as ‘very rich and generous’ friend of the Council), and Kennedy’s safety should have been his number one, top, priority.

Doyle had told them to ‘go fuck themselves’. Kennedy had giggled, rather like the schoolgirl she actually was and Ray had found himself grinning at the girl’s reaction. No doubt it would cause trouble for him later, but a teenage girl in his care had been kidnapped and he couldn’t just let it rest at that. He supposed he was still, at heart, just a beat Bobby trying to do his best.

He’d spent sometime talking to people in some of the more ‘unusual’ security departments of the British security community. These were the people that dealt with the threats that the normal organisations like the police or even CI5 couldn’t handle. The British Government had never liked handing over the nation’s security completely to secret organisations that they didn’t control. So there were a few small agencies that kept an eye on everything ‘other worldly’ for the government. 

Again Doyle came up blank; there were no ancient rites that needed the sacrifice of a virgin to complete in the offing. No attempts had been made by maniacal loonies to open Hellmouths in the country since St Trinians school had mysteriously burnt down in the early sixties. In fact there seemed to be no supernatural cause for the kidnapping of teenage daughters of very wealthy and uncaring people.

So it looked like someone had bungled the job and kidnapped the wrong girl, it was as simple as Bodie had implied earlier…it was just a crime. But it did seem odd that the kidnappers had not left a single trace behind them. He knew from personal experience that no matter how careful you were you always left something behind; and this is how he found himself at the scene of the crime throwing magical dust about under the bemused stare of a sceptical potential slayer. It was funny how life came and kicked you in the shins.

0=0=0=0

Ray watched as the powder settled on the grass, it coated the vegetation with an orange sheen, nothing, he thought, maybe it was just a crime after all.

“Hey that was cool!” exclaimed Kennedy pointing to the gap in the hedge, “How’d you do that?”

Ray looked up to where the girl was pointing, there seemed to be a faint outline of a figure frozen in time in the gap in the hedge. Having a target to concentrate on Doyle threw more dust into the air so that it would drift over the area where the image of the figure had appeared. After a few minutes Doyle and Kennedy stood back and watched as the scene repeated itself. It was like watching a piece of orange coloured film that only lasted a few seconds over and over again. 

What they saw was the struggling form of Jackie being pulled through the hedge by what could only be a demon. Watcher and potential looked at each other, they had found their perpetrator, and with any luck Jackie was still alive, now all they had to do was hunt the creature down and rescue the rather overweight damsel in distress.

0=0=0=0


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven.

It was nearly seven o’clock in the evening when a man and woman, both dressed in smart dark suits adorned with name tags and clutching bibles in their hands; walked up to the front door of twenty-three Medway Road in Aldington. Children played noisily on the areas of threadbare grass between the blocks of two up two down brick built terraced council houses. Built back in the early sixties the estate had won awards for its futuristic design. Forty years later they were a study in poverty, despair and crime.

The man knocked loudly on the door while his female partner watched the roadway behind them. Fifty yards down the road a shiny, black, Land-Rover Discovery with tinted windows was parked at the side of the road looking totally out of place amongst the old ill kept hatchbacks Ford Transits and minivans that populated the rest of the street. The man knocked on the door again, there having been no answer to his first assault on the door.

“There doesn’t look as if there’s anybody at home,” commented the woman as she glanced up at the bedroom windows above her head.

“Must be,” replied the man as he checked that he wasn’t being watched before producing a set of lock picks from his pocket, “we’ve had the place under observation all afternoon, no one’s gone in or out, lets see…”

The smartly dressed man bent and fiddled with the lock for a moment, when he stood up he spoke to his wrist.

“We’re in!” An instant later the area came alive with half a dozen running men and women all clutching pistols in their hands.

The two ‘Bible Bashers’ burst through the front door pulling automatics from under their jackets as more officers piled into the house behind them. Quickly and efficiently they searched the house room by room calling out to each other when each room had been cleared. Finally there was a call from the kitchen at the back of the house.

“In here!” An officer dressed as a street sweeper looked into the hall where several other CI5 officers were standing, “This is weird you better have a look at this.”

Officer Cheshire, who was in charge of the raid on Crusher’s Mom and Dad’s house, pushed his way into the kitchen and looked around at the pokey unkempt kitchen. The first thing that struck him was the sweet sickly smell of death that came from the two dead bodies that still sat at the kitchen table in their night clothes.

“Fuck me!” breathed Cheshire quietly.

“No thanks,” replied a female CI5 officer with a grin, Cheshire looked at her sharply, the officer shrugged her shoulders at his glare and thought, ‘up yours, arsehole’ aloud she said, “Looks like they’ve been dead for a couple of days…and look at this,” she pointed to male corpse’s head with the muzzle of her pistol.

Moving in for a closer look, trying not to breath too heavily, Cheshire studied the line around the top of the man’s head. Screwing up his eyes and trying to get a better look at the injury, without getting any closer to the corpse than necessary. He noticed that the line went all around the unfortunate man’s head; it looked as if someone had carefully cut the top of the man’s head off then neatly replaced it. Glancing off to where the female cadaver sat Cheshire saw that she had a similar line across her forehead. Bringing his attention back to the body right under his noise Cheshire found himself reaching out with his hand. It was as if it no longer belonged to him, gently he took hold of the man’s sparse hair and started to lift the top of the head away from the body.

“Hey!” cried the female officer in alarm, “You’re destroying evidence!”

Too late, Cheshire already had the top of the man’s head in his hand and was lifting it slowly away from the rest of the skull. He caught a fleeting glimpse of long spider-like legs, a blood and gore covered furry body, and then something with sharp pointed teeth springing out of the body’s head which leapt at him mouth wide ready to sink those overly long teeth into his neck.

The next couple of minutes were a frenzy of screaming and yelling as the sound of gunshots filled the small room. When calm returned, Cheshire lay on the floor his throat having been ripped out; another operative sat on the floor clutching a badly bitten hand. The female agent knelt next to her partner trying to staunch the bleeding from where several fingers had nearly been ripped off. The strange little creature, which had killed one man and seriously injured another, lay in broken pieces on the floor.

0=0=0=0

Bodie stormed into the kitchen, his injured officer having been taken to hospital under guard. Cheshire and ‘Crusher’s’ father still lay on the floor where they had fallen. Someone had put a plastic bucket on the woman’s head, just in case her skull contained one of the creatures that had killed Cheshire. Bodie squatted down next to where somebody had put a clear glass bowl over the remains of the spider like creature.

Studying the remains for a minute or two, Bodie came to the conclusion that whatever it was it wasn’t a spider, for a start it only had four legs. It had two black beady eyes that gazed up at him sightlessly from the floor. It had an insect shaped body about six inches long the first two or three inches of which appeared to be made up of a round head that contained the eyes and unusually large teeth for a creature of this size, the creature’s body was covered in short black fur that at the moment was matted with blood and bits of what could only be brains.

“Right!” Bodie stood up and turned to the officer who stood behind him, “Robinson isn’t it?” the young woman nodded her head, “I want Cheshire and the woman’s body taken back to our labs…full NBC* precautions understand?” Robinson nodded her understanding, “Then,” continued Bodie, “get someone over to that school and have Ray Doyle brought to me…in chains if you have to!”

“Where will you be Sir?” asked Robinson.

“Oh I’ll be…” Bodie was cut off in mid-explanation as several uniformed policemen burst into the kitchen followed by Inspector Morris.

Nora Morris stood next to Bodie and surveyed the devastation of the kitchen and the dead bodies on the floor: she turned to look at Bodie.

“Traditionally,” she began; a small smile creeping across her lips, “I think I’m supposed to say; ‘ello, ‘ello, what’s all this then?” She looked pointedly at Cheshire’s body, “You weren’t going to remove evidence from the crime scene now were you?”

0=0=0=0

It had felt like days since she’d eaten anything, what with Kennedy’s attempts to put her on a diet and making her run around the sports field; plus whatever the demon was doing to her, Jackie was ravenous. The demon, (for that was what she was convinced it was; she had seen pictures of similar creatures in Mr Doyle’s books) had put her back into her tiny cell then a short time later it had pushed a bottle of water and a bowl of porridge like food through the slit in her cell door.

Jackie had eaten the porridge and drunk the water greedily, not only was she starving but she was parched as well. Feeling slightly less terrified she pushed herself into the corner of her stone box and rested, she tried to work out what was happening to her. The demon obviously wanted to keep her alive for a little longer or he wouldn’t have fed her. Then there was what it was doing to her; it hurt, it had hurt more than anything she had experienced in her entire life. It made her feel drained and weak; and if she ran her hands across her body she could feel her ribs where there had been rolls of fat, her arms and legs felt thinner too.

As hard as she tried Jackie couldn’t remember how long she had been cooped up in this hole in the wall, it felt like days; weeks even, but some how she couldn’t justify that in her mind. Maybe it was really only hours, but that felt wrong too. Jackie shook her head trying to clear it of her jumbled thoughts; as she did so the flap opened and the grey scaly hand shot in and grabbed the bowl and then disappeared again. It had all happened too fast for Jackie to react; she heard the flap being locked again and once more she was alone in the dark. Just as she was starting to feel desperate again, she shifted in her cramped prison and felt something stick into her thigh.

Searching around in the dark Jackie’s fingers eventually closed on the spoon she had eaten her porridge with…the metal spoon she had eaten her porridge with. The demon had slipped up! It wasn’t much but it was something…she had watched ‘The Great Escape’ anything was possible with a spoon. Hope blossomed in Jackie’s heart as she felt around the door of her cell until her fingers came into contact with where the hinges were screwed into the brickwork. Shuffling around so that she could get her hands and arms into a position so she could work; she started to pick away the cement that held the bricks in place that in turn held the hinges to the cell door in position.

0=0=0=0

Inspector Morris turned to Sergeant Hudson, a smug look on her face; it was amazing what a phone call to the ACC could achieve.

“That’s got rid of all the ‘cowboys’,” she enthused as she walked over to look at the body of ‘Crusher’s’ dad, “I’m sick of all these ‘Secret Squirrels’ lording it over us local types,” she turned her attention to the thing under the glass bowl, “Do we know what this is?” she asked looking up at Hudson, he shook his head in answer, “And why did someone put a bucket on the other victim’s head?”

Again Hudson shrugged his shoulders.

“Well,” sighed Morris as she stood up again, “there’s nothing we can do until the forensics people have done their ‘black magic’ and the M.E. has examined the bodies.”

The M.E. certainly had his work cut out; there were Mr and Mrs Wilson, Crusher’s parents, plus the CI5 operative. All killed in a number of unexplained and gruesome ways. Then there was the strange animal that appeared to be involved somehow. Maybe, thought Morris, this was a public health problem and not connected to the kidnapping that she was supposed to be investigating.

“Come on,” Morris headed for the front door leaving the crime scene to Soco* and headed towards her car with Hudson trailing along behind her. “let’s get back to the station and try and find that poor girl.”

The two officers climbed into the car and drove off into the late summer’s evening. It was starting to get fully dark as they headed for Maidstone Police Station; Inspector Morris sat back in her seat and sighed contentedly. That had shown Bodie and his ‘Super Secret Bully Boys’, she would never forgive him, any chance she had of putting him down she would take joyfully. Although she loved her daughter dearly there was no way she was ever going to forgive the girl’s father for what he had done.

0=0=0=0

Doyle and Kennedy sat up in Doyle’s study going through the demonology books. The orange powder, that Doyle still insisted wasn’t magic, had given them a fair idea of what they were looking for, Kennedy sat on the floor cross legged a book in her lap. Flicking through the pages she cursed the stupid short uniform skirt she was forced to wear as the carpet made her legs itch. Looking up at Doyle, where he sat at his desk on the only chair in the room, she saw him studying some huge book which contained some rather lurid colour pictures of what demons got up to in their spare time.

“You’d think there’d be some sort of ‘Observers Book of Demons’?” Kennedy closed the book on her lap and struggled to her feet, she went to look over Doyle’s shoulder.

“What?” he looked up at her and snapped the book shut when he saw that she was trying to catch a glimpse of the full colour illustrations.

“I mean,” continued Kennedy, pretending that she’d not been trying to look while all the time noting the design on the cover for future reference. “You’d think the Council would have put together a book containing the…say hundred most common demons. That way a slayer could quickly find out what she was facing, instead of all this searching about through gross old books.”

“I don’t think it works like that,” replied Doyle while at the same time thinking the girl had a point, he glanced at his watch, “it’s nearly ten-thirty you should be getting ready for bed.”

“No way!” Kennedy replied rapidly, “I can’t leave you here to work through the night by yourself,” Kennedy tried not to be put off by Doyle’s disbelieving look, “I mean Jackie’s my friend too you know?”

“Who a couple of days ago you wouldn’t have spat on if she was on fire,” Doyle pointed out the inconvenient truth.

“Weeeeell…” Kennedy whined trying to think of a good answer.

“Bed!” Doyle pointed to the door.

“Oh alright,” agreed Kennedy reluctantly as she headed towards the door, “but don’t you go rushing off without me…I mean how’s a potential slayer supposed to learn stuff if her watcher keeps running off to fight the monsters without her?”

“Bed!”

“Okay,” resignedly Kennedy left the room and headed towards her bed.

0=0=0=0

Picking up the spoon in trembling fingers, the creature had fed on her again and wiping the tears from her eyes Jackie started to chip away at the cement once more. So far the demon hadn’t noticed her escape attempt; she had brushed any loose bits of cement down the hole in the middle of the floor. It also didn’t spend anytime checking her cell or indeed checking her for any signs of escape attempts. It just reached in and grabbed her then dragged her from the cell and tied her to the chair. When it had finished with her it just threw her back into the hole and slammed the door behind her.

Jackie worked a large lump of cement free with the tip of the spoon. The cement was old and crumbled easily at her every assault. However, she didn’t know how long she could keep this up, after every feeding she felt weaker and less able to concentrate. She found her mind drifting off to scenes from her childhood or school when she should be digging her way to freedom. Her ribs felt even more pronounced and her breasts had wasted away to almost nothing, if she didn’t get out soon she’d look like one of those concentration camp victims she’d seen at the Holocaust Exhibition the previous year. Finding that she had drifted off to sleep she woke up with a start, she punched the metal door with her fist, the pain giving her a jolt of adrenaline. Then she forced her tired body back to work.

“I’ll show ‘em,” she muttered quietly to the cell door, “I’ll show ‘em I’m not helpless any-more…” another piece of cement came free and fell on the floor, “they’ll all be sorry they…they…th..”

The adrenaline wore off and Jackie slumped back to sleep.

0=0=0=0

Crusher held the human he had just caught until its feeble struggles ceased. Carefully he lay his victim down in a dark corner of the underground car-park. It would not be noticed for a day or two here in the deserted corner he had selected. Crusher cautiously began to remove the top of the humans head, he didn’t rush as this was a delicate piece of work, he mustn’t damage the human’s brain or the spawn would not flourish. Removing the top of the head like the lid of a jar, Crusher placed the egg in with the brain before replacing the ‘lid’.

The egg would be safe there until the temperature of the human’s body dropped sufficiently to allow it to hatch; this would take about a day depending on where the body was left. Once hatched the spawn would devour the brain then it would leave the body and go off to mature. Within six days the spawn would be strong enough to inhabit and take control of a human and could take its place in society.

In her own way Crusher had been particularly successful at this, she had lived amongst the humans as one of them for nearly a year. As she had grown she had become stronger until she had felt the need to reproduce. To do this she had needed to feed off a human and eventually eat their brain. If she didn’t eat the brain she would die from the effort of producing the eggs. The human she’d caught had been a good plump one and would last her another couple of feedings that would produce another two clutches of eggs. By tomorrow night Crusher would be feasting on brain herself!

0=0=0=0

After sending Kennedy to bed, Doyle stayed up studying his books, around midnight he had a long telephone conversation with watcher headquarters in London. If anything, by the time he put the phone down he was even more worried than before. His suspicions had been confirmed, now he needed to do something about it.

Getting up from his chair he made his way over to one of the bookcases that lined the walls of his study. Reaching up he moved aside a couple of large books. Taking down the old metal ammunition box that had been hidden there Doyle sat down again, opened the box and took out his trusty old Walther P38 pistol. He smiled to himself; most of his colleagues would try to kill the demon with a sword or an axe. There was no way Ray Doyle was going to get that close to anything as dangerous as a Thy’w-sty-reba demon, Doyle fully intended to blow it pieces from as far away as possible. He laughed quietly again and started to strip down the weapon and clean it.

0=0=0=0

NBC: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical.  
ACC: Assistant Chief Constable.  
Soco: Scenes of Crime Officer(s) does the same job as a CSI. Pronounced ‘Soc-o’. 


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight.

Doyle hurried down the main staircase and into the entrance hall; the place was already packed with girls going to and fro as they headed for the first lesson of the day. Doyle glanced at his watch and cursed silently to himself; he’d intended to be up and about and well away from the school before anybody else was up. However a combination of staying up late to do research and forgetting to set his alarm clock meant that he was actually later getting up than he normally would be. 

Looking around for anyone who might challenge him Doyle made his way through the mob of girls towards the front door. Once outside he stood for a moment at the top of the steps leading down to the car park; the sound of an engine came to his ears. Down the driveway he saw a black Land-Rover Discovery with tinted windows speed up the gravel drive towards him. The vehicle slide to a halt in front of him sending loose gravel in all directions, the passenger door was flung open and a familiar voice called from inside.

“Doyle!” Bodie looked out of the door to where Doyle stood, “Get your fat arse in here.”

“What’s wrong?” asked Doyle not budging from his present position.

“I’ll explain as we go,” Bodie replied irritably, “now let’s move.”

With more than a little reluctance Doyle climbed into the Land-Rover and sat next to his old partner, Bodie put the car into gear and sped off heading for the main road.

0=0=0=0

Jackie woke up in exactly the same position in which she had fallen to sleep; time had little meaning to her now. She didn’t know whether it was morning or night, the only light she ever saw was when the demon took her out of her cell to feed on her. Her muscles ached, she couldn’t stretch to relieve the cramp in her legs, her back was stiff and when she tried to move her head, pain lanced through her neck causing her to cry out in agony. As with the light the only time she got relief from her cramped conditions was when the creature took her out to feed on her. Maybe this was part of its fiendish plan to make her eager to get out of the cell so it wouldn’t have to fight her every time it wanted a snack.

Feeling around her tiny prison Jackie’s fingers came in contact with the water bottle left for her by the demon. Thirstily she drank the last inch of water then she picked up her faithful spoon; once more she started to pick away at the cement. She knew herself well enough to realise that if she didn’t escape in the next few hours she’d be too weak to move, and who knew when the demon would come back for another meal? Jackie knew that if it fed on her again that would be the end, she would simply fade away and die. Wiping a tear from her eye she continued her attack on the cement with renewed determination.

0=0=0=0

Kennedy watched as Doyle got into the Land-Rover and drove off.

“Crap!” she muttered, “Damn him to hell!”

Doyle had more or less promised to let her join him on any rescue attempt of Jackie; after all she was Kennedy’s best friend…well friend…oh okay then, she was Kennedy’s ‘sociology project’. She looked around; no one was really watching her, if she didn’t find a way of following the speeding Land-Rover in the next couple of minutes she might as well go to class.

Glancing over towards the conservatory at the south end of the school building Kennedy’s eyes fell on two motor scooters. They belonged to the two boys who had been grabbed by the CI5 snatch team a couple of nights before, and so far neither boy had returned to reclaim his bike. Walking quickly Kennedy went over and checked the two bikes out. They were both 80cc motor scooters like the ones that had been popular with the ‘Mods’ back in the sixties. Putting her school books down she checked them over hurriedly; they were similar to a type that her father had let her ride during the summer vacation, there were even a couple of helmets.

She grabbed at one helmet only to find that it was locked to the Scooter by its chin strap, she tried the other; luckily it wasn’t secured to anything. As she climbed aboard she put on the helmet and did up the strap. Next she went to start the motor…only to find that the keys were missing. All the time thinking of the Land-Rover as it got further and further away she jumped off the scooter and ripped open an inspection panel. Fiddling about with some wires, she hotwired the engine and had it running in about thirty seconds; this being one of the lesser known advantages of an English Boarding School education. Jumping back onto the seat she revved the engine a little too much and wobbled off across the car park in front of the school and headed down the drive after her watcher.

0=0=0=0

Inspector Morris walked into her office only to find Sergeant Hudson already there and waiting for her. Taking off her jacket Morris sat down behind her desk and looked up at her Sergeant as he hovered over her.

“What’s got you so steamed up?” she asked sitting back in her chair.

Hudson took a deep breath, he knew how his boss liked things structured, get the simple unimportant things out of the way first. Then go on to the important stuff…bugger that he thought!

“Boss,” he dragged a chair across the office and sat down, “you know you wanted the ME to examine those bodies from yesterday?” Morris nodded her head, “Well unfortunately some sort of creature leapt out of Mrs Wilson’s head and ripped out the ME’s throat…he’s dead.”

Nora sat there for a moment her mouth hanging open; eventually she regained her power of speech.

“What…” she mumbled, after all it wasn’t every day that ME’s got killed examining bodies, “Did anybody catch it?” she asked after a moment or two.

“No it got away…pest control are still looking,” Hudson answered pre-empting Morris’s next likely question.

“What…what about the Carter-Brown case?” she wanted to know.

“Nothing so far,” Hudson consulted his notebook, “searches of the area have turned up nothing, house to house hasn’t found any new witnesses, and re-questioning the staff and pupils hasn’t turned up anything new.” Hudson paused for a moment as he ordered his thoughts, “You see she wasn’t exactly a popular girl…didn’t have any particular friends.”

“School prank gone wrong?” pondered Morris more to herself than to Hudson, “Unpopular girl, someone plays a prank and it goes horribly wrong?”

“No, boss,” Hudson knew when his Boss was sounding out a possibility, “it was too professional, who ever it was left no trace…and there’s the DeSilver-Doyle connection plus all those CI5 people crawling all over the school before we got there.”

“What are you thinking?” Morris leant across her desk towards Hudson.

“Well from what I’ve been able to find out,” began Hudson carefully, “for the last few days Carter-Brown has been thick as thieves with Doyle and DeSilver. Its odd Boss, DeSilver’s a popular, clever, sporty type girl who until a few days ago wouldn’t have looked twice at Carter-Brown, probably didn’t even know she existed…then suddenly she’s moved into Carter-Brown’s room and they’re spending all their spare time together. Apparently they even went shopping together at the weekend.”

“The schoolgirl equivalent of a stable relationship,” Morris smiled to herself, “and the Ray Doyle connection?”

“DeSilver does spend a great deal of her spare time up in Doyle’s office,” Hudson pointed out, “and there’s been rumours…”

“Rumours?” asked Morris, “Or schoolgirl gossip?”

“Hard to tell, Boss,” admitted Hudson.

“What about the CI5 connection?” Morris rested her chin on her hand and watched Hudson closely.

“Coincidence,” announced Hudson decisively.

“How so?”

“I think CI5 are down here chasing after whatever it was that killed Crusher’s Mom and Dad, and now the ME,” Hudson explained earnestly.

“And the two American Mafioso?”

“Just a smoke screen,” said Hudson excitedly, “an excuse to be in the area while they chase after some military experiment that went wrong and escaped.”

“It all sounds a bit ‘Quatermass Experiment’ to me,” Morris held up her hand to forestall Hudson’s defence of his theory. “but your idea about the Carter-Brown girl might be worth looking into.” Morris sat back and thought for a minute or two before speaking again, “Doyle gets a job at a prestigious girl’s boarding school…now that’s suspicious in and of itself.” A rueful smile crossed Morris’s lips for a moment, “He grooms this DeSilver girl, he always had a taste for younger women,” she added half to herself, “then uses DeSilver to groom other girls before kidnapping them…maybe his tastes have widened to under age girls? So he’s holding her somewhere…”

“Bring him in for questioning?” asked Hudson eagerly.

“Yes!” Morris stood up and walked over to where she had left her jacket, “Organise some uniforms, we’ll pick up Doyle and his ‘girlfriend’ at the same time…lets hope we can get them to tell us where they’ve stashed the Carter-Brown girl before its too late!”

0=0=0=0

“She did what!?!?” exclaimed Doyle; Bodie drove the car between the lines of morning traffic as they headed towards the centre of Maidstone.

“She called the ACC and had us pull out,” repeated Bodie as he was forced to pull up behind a line of cars at a set of lights, “she said we were impeding her investigation of your girl’s kidnapping, and finding the girl was more important than doing the FBI’s dirty work.”

“She has a point you know?” Doyle glanced over at his ex-partner to see him nod in agreement.

“If I’d had my way I’d never have let them in the country in the first place,” Bodie sighed in frustration as the line of traffic moved forward a few yards, “but unfortunately they’ve not actually done anything wrong in this country. Now if we could connect them to this kidnapping we could lock them up and once we’ve got them who knows what Intel we could get out of them.”

Although Doyle could see the logic behind his old friends plan, he still felt uncomfortable about having put Kennedy in danger.

“We’ve also got the problem of ‘Crusher’ you know?”

“We have?” Bodie muttered a curse as the traffic crawled forward a few more yards.

“My people,” Doyle explained, “say he’s, or should I say ‘she’ needs to be stopped ASAP!”

“SHE?” exclaimed Bodie nearly driving them into the back of the car in front.

“Yeah ‘fraid so,” admitted Doyle slowly, “she’s one of the things the people I work for deal with.”

“Dangerous?” Bodie sighed with relief as they eventually crossed the junction and picked up a little speed on a clear stretch of road.

“By itself no, but we think it’s been breeding.”

“Why do I get the feeling that’s bad?” Bodie brought the car to a halt behind another line of traffic. 

Doyle made a non-committal grunt before asking, “Where are we going by the way?”

“Well, _IF_ ,” Bodie stressed the word, “we ever get through this traffic I thought we’d pick up our laughing boys from the States.”

“But didn’t you…”

“Yes,” nodded Bodie as they picked up speed again, “It’ll just be you an’ me…”

“Just like old times then?” Doyle gave Bodie a hard look.

“Look Doyle, they must know where the girl’s being held,” explained Bodie. “We beat it out of them then we rescue the girl and we all end up smelling of roses…easy,” Bodie smiled, Doyle didn’t look convinced, “you armed by the way?”

“Yeah,” sighed Doyle, he didn’t sound at all happy either.

0=0=0=0

Inspector Morris stood amid a whirlwind of activity as uniformed officers ran about the school building. Detective Sergeant Hudson crunched across the car park and came to a halt in front of the Inspector.

“No sign of either of them,” he announced breathlessly, “the Head says that no one has seen Mr Doyle all morning, and DeSilver never turned up for class.”

“Anyone see where they went?”

“No, Boss,” Hudson glanced around at the crowds of teenage girls and their teachers who watched from the classroom windows. “like I say no one’s seen either of them this morning.”

“Wonder where they went?” pondered Morris turning from the school to find herself face to face with a teenage girl with long curly dark hair.

“Miss?” the girl looked at Morris innocently. “I saw Kennedy leave this morning.”

“You did!” Morris was all attention now, “When? Where did she go?”

“Just after nine,” smiled Maya helpfully, “I saw her get on one of the motor scooters that were left over there,” she pointed to the conservatory, “and about five minutes before Mr Doyle got into one of those big black four by four things.”

“You wouldn’t have taken the numbers would you?” asked Morris stepping closer to the girl.

“Well,” Maya smiled sweetly, “I thought it looked odd so…” she handed Morris a torn out page from an exercise book, it had two clearly written vehicle registration numbers on it.

Morris smiled, she recognised one of the numbers, it belonged to one of the CI5 vehicles Bodie had been using.

0=0=0=0

Kennedy wobbled through the traffic and thought that riding a scooter in the grounds of her home back in the States was a lot less nerve racking that riding on the roads in England. At least back home no one was trying to kill you at every turn. Dodging around a Post Office van Kennedy caught sight of the roof of the four-by-four that Doyle had got into. Opening the throttle she sped off down the gap between the stalled rows of cars.

0=0=0=0

“Where are we going?” Doyle wanted to know as Bodie drove the Discovery into the fore court of a rather posh looking hotel on Maidstone’s outskirts.

“Right here,” replied Bodie smugly as he brought the Land-Rover to a halt, “this is where our Yank friends are staying,” he started to open the door.

As he did so two things happened; first a girl on a motor scooter rode up and stopped behind them in such away as to prevent the Land-Rover from leaving the fore court. Secondly, two sharply dressed and obviously American Gangsters walked briskly from the hotel towards a car in the hotel car park.

“Bugger!” exclaimed Bodie, “We’re too late.”

0=0=0=0

Jackie scratched at the cement between the bricks with failing strength; stopping to rest she slumped against the cell door. Her arms ached worse than ever before and she knew that unless she got out soon she was as good as dead. Shifting her position Jackie felt the door ‘wobble’ on its mountings. For a moment she stayed absolutely still not believing that she might have succeeded in tunnelling her way out of her prison. Again she moved, this time deliberately pushing against the door, she heard the unmistakeable sound of brick scraping on brick.

Frantically Jackie pushed at the door, her fingers scrabbling around the edges trying to find purchase on the smooth metal surface. Suddenly there was a bump and the door moved leaving a gap of nearly two inches all the way around; then it stuck solid. Jackie pushed and pushed at the door with trembling arms but still it wouldn’t budge. Tears of frustration rolled down her cheeks as she realised that at the moment of her seeming deliverance once more life had come along to kick her in the teeth.

Rolling up into a ball Jackie’s body shook as great sobs racked her body, life was so unfair; she’d tried really hard and almost escaped but now it looked like she was going to die after all. Cursing an uncaring universe, she just for a moment felt like praying…not that it’d ever helped before. They’d all be sad when they learnt about how she’d died, Jackie thought to herself, and then…no they wouldn’t! They’d not cared about her when she was alive, why should they care how she died? Mr Doyle and Kennedy had cared a little but they probably had some ulterior motive. No, she would make them suffer for ignoring her…she would live, or die in the attempt.

Shuffling herself around in her cramped little cell Jackie braced her thin bony shoulders against the far wall and placed her feet on the middle of the door. She pushed with all her strength, at first nothing moved and Jackie felt her resolution start to fade away. Panting she lay on the cell floor, she’d show them all, she tried to stiffen her resolve, she would show them what she could do, then they’d all be sorry and treat her with respect. Placing her feet on the door once more Jackie pushed, and pushed; there was a scraping sound as the bricks came free from the wall followed by a loud thump as the door and the loose bricks hit the floor.

She was free!

0=0=0=0

“Move that fucking bike!” yelled Bodie as he stood half in half out of the Discovery.

“Not until you let me in!” Kennedy screamed back, “Mr Doyle!” There was no reply from Ray Doyle; Kennedy filled her lungs to shout again, “Mr Doyle!” she yelled at the top of her voice.

Bodie considered shooting the young harridan, but people were starting to come out of the hotel to see what all the noise was about. If he shot her now there’d be too many witnesses, he’d never be able to cover it up. Doyle wasn’t being much help; he was hiding in the car as if he was afraid of the schoolgirl.

“Daddy!” yelled Kennedy changing tactics, she smiled when she saw Bodie wince, she ran at Bodie and wrapped her arms around his waist, “You’ll not get rid of me now!” she grinned impishly up into the face of the controller of one of Britain’s premiere security organisations.

“You might as well let her come now,” Doyle’s voice came from inside the Land-Rover, “short of shooting her we’ll never get rid of her…potential see,” Doyle sighed as he opened the rear door for Kennedy, “Big egos…you know what I mean?”

Bodie did in fact know what his old partner meant; he smiled to himself as he climbed back into the driver’s seat while the girl bombarded Doyle with a barrage of questions. The girl reminded Bodie of himself when he was younger. He started the engine and a thought hit him, he looked at the girl’s face in the rear view mirror and desperately tried to remember if he had slept with any American women sixteen years ago.

0=0=0=0


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine.

Jackie landed in a heap on the floor under her cell door, gasping for breath she looked around only to find herself still in complete darkness. Starting to panic, she asked herself, what had she done? Had she escaped from one prison only to find herself in another, admittedly, larger one? Struggling to regain control of her breathing and her terror filled imagination she crouched on the floor. Slowly her breathing settled down into a near normal rhythm as she forced her frightened, panicking, alter ego back into its box and tried to think logically. She was on the floor under her cell door, and that would mean that about six to eight feet in front of her, somewhere out in the dark stood the chair. The chair that she had been tied to, where the demon had fed on her. Staying on her hands and knees she cautiously crawled forward, every foot or so she would stop and reach out with her hand trying to find the chair.

After what seemed like an eternity her hand came in contact with the hard wooden leg of her instrument of torment. The air wheezed in and out of her lungs as she used the chair to climb to her feet. Having spent so long lying down she felt sick and dizzy as she stood up for the first time in what felt like days. Hanging on to the back of the chair she fought down her feelings of nausea and waited for her head to stop spinning. Taking a deep breath she tried to imagine the room as she had seen it when the lights were on and she hadn’t been screaming in agony. Forcing her mind to remember, a mental image of the room came to her mind’s eye. She was standing behind the chair in the middle of the room, if she remembered correctly the door was at an angle of forty-five degrees from straight ahead. It was situated in the corner of the room about twelve feet away. All she had to do was find the wall and work her way into the corner. For the first time in what felt like an eternity Jackie felt hope.

0=0=0=0

Inspector Morris sat next to DS Hudson as he drove her back to the station, so far today hadn’t turned out too well. They had missed Doyle and the girl he was probably abusing and they’d lost sight of Bodie; and as for these American Mobsters! Well, if Bodie and his people wanted to chase fairy stories they could. She studied her notebook checking back over the evidence trying to see if there was anything she had missed. It was a pure fluke, but as she was checking the registration number of the stolen motor scooter the same number came over the police radio in the car.

Morris sat up with a start and listened closely to the message; apparently a patrol car had found the bike abandoned in the car park of the Majestic Hotel. The rider had dumped it there and got into a black Land-Rover Discovery. Luckily a member of the public had noted down the Discovery’s number and the direction it had headed in when it had left the car park. Morris ordered Hudson to take her to the hotel while she used the radio to order all patrol cars to stop and apprehend the Discovery and its passengers.

As Hudson drove her towards the hotel Morris wondered how many other women’s lives Bodie and Doyle had ruined. It was only by good luck and sheer guts that she hadn’t let the fact that Bodie had got her pregnant all those years ago and left her to fend for herself. She’d struggled hard and managed to become a success where many other women would have fallen by the wayside. Now they were obviously grooming these innocent young girls to be their sexual playthings! Was there no end to their depravity?

0=0=0=0

“Have you any idea where they’re headed?” Bodie wanted to know as he tried to keep the car carrying the two American gangsters in sight; the Discovery wasn’t the best vehicle to tail someone in, it was big and distinctive.

“If they follow this road,” Doyle consulted a local street atlas, “they’ll be in the town center in a couple of minutes.”

“They might be going to Panel Wood,” Kennedy announced from the back seat; Doyle turned to look at her.

“Why?” he asked.

“Well, it’s where I’d keep someone if I didn’t want people to find them,” Kennedy saw Doyle’s questioning look and felt she should explain further. “It’s an area of big old houses, which should have been knocked down years ago,” she explained, “No one lives there now except homeless people, squatters and junkies…I bet that’s where they’re going.”

“And you know this how?” Doyle flicked through the local road atlas until he found the right page and pointed to it out to Bodie.

“Oh I’ve been to a couple of…” Kennedy realised what she was about to say, “Patrols! Y-Yes patrols…I went on a couple of patrols up there…” she saw Doyle’s eyes reflected in the rear view mirror as they seemed to bore straight into her soul, “I was just checking the area out,” she added lamely.

“Patrols?” asked Doyle, “You’re sure you weren’t at a party or something.”

“ _Me_?” Kennedy’s voice went up in pitch as she lied, “Party? No-way, no sir. Just scoping out the area.”

Kennedy hunkered down in her seat and started to take an interest in what she could see out of the window. Oh shit, she thought, I’m gonna be in so much trouble when Doyle gets me back to school.

“Whatever your girl was doing,” Bodie watched the car in front intently, “it looks like she’s right!”

Doyle looked out the windscreen to see they had entered an area of run down houses and scruffy little shops. The car carrying the gangsters made its way between the rows of beat-up old cars that lined the streets, the driver seemed to know where he was going as he drove confidently further into the desolate, derelict area.

0=0=0=0

It had taken what felt like forever to find the door; she had bumped into things that she’d not remembered being there. Shedd tripped and fallen several times causing her to lose her way. A journey of no more than twelve feet had felt like twelve miles. But now Jackie’s hand rested on the door knob, trembling with excitement at the thought that she would be free at any moment, while at the same time terrified that the door might be locked. All she had to do was turn the knob and she would be out of this hell.

She started to twist the knob, at first it turned easily but then it stuck. Her heart pounded in her chest and her tummy did back flips as she fought down the panic that threatened to engulf her. No, she begged silently, not now, not when she was nearly free. Twisting the knob as hard as she could, she felt it start to move, it squeaked and moved suddenly in her hand as the door swung slowly open.  
Falling on to her hands and knees Jackie almost cried out with relief; looking up she saw light coming in from an open door at the top of a flight of wooden stairs. The light hurt her eyes and made them water, but she smiled through her pain and started to crawl towards the stairs. 

Sitting there in the half light Jackie looked up at the stairs and realised she would never walk up them. Not even bothering to try she stayed on her hands and knees and started to crawl up towards the light. She felt so weak, she panted like someone who had just run a long race up a high mountain, her arms trembled with the exertion of pulling herself up the stairs. Maybe if she rested for a minute, she bargained with herself, maybe if she rested for a while she’d be able to climb the rest of the way.

“Come on, Jackie!” 

Jackie looked up at the sound of the voice.

“Don’t be such a slug! Get a move on would you?” At the top of the stairs stood Kennedy dressed in the track suit she wore for training; she looked down at Jackie with her hands on her hips and a slightly bored expression on her face. Exactly the same look she gave Jackie when she was waiting for her at the end of a run.

“C’mon move,” complained Kennedy, “I’ve not got all day, y’know?”

“Okay-Okay,” gasped Jackie slowly reaching out to the next step with her hand, “wait-up a bit…I’ll get there.”

“Yeah, like next week!” Kennedy looked impatiently at her watch, “If you make me miss breakfast I’ll…”

“Shut-up! Shut-up!” Jackie yelled as she climbed another step, “I’ll get there…I’ll show you…I’ll...I hate you…You bitch!”

Jackie collapsed on the top step half in and half out of the doorway, when she looked up Kennedy was gone.

0=0=0=0

Morris listened intently to the radio, a patrol car had spotted the black Discovery, she ordered the officers in the car to follow but to wait for her to arrive before they tried to apprehend Bodie and Doyle.

0=0=0=0

“I think we’ve been made,” announced Bodie as he followed the gangsters into another street that looked even more run down than all the others they’d passed.

Sure enough the car ahead had accelerated and was making for the other end of the road at high speed.

“I’m surprised we’ve been able to follow them this far,” Doyle pointed out as he pulled his automatic and checked it was loaded, “I’d have thought they’d have seen us ages ago.”

“Stop!” Screamed Kennedy from the backseat, “Stop the car NOW!”

0=0=0=0

Lying on the hall floor Jackie saw the front door tantalisingly close, she only had to crawl a few more yards and she would be out in the street. Then all she’d have to do was scream; someone was bound to notice an emaciated, naked teenage girl as she crawled along the pavement or something. 

“Come on you useless lump,” she ordered herself, “not far now.”

Freezing in terror she heard the back door being unlocked. With a Herculean effort Jackie climbed to her feet then stumbled to the front door. Her fingers fumbled with the locks and bolts that held the door closed; she could hear the backdoor opening now and footsteps on the floor. Tears of frustration blurred her already poor eyesight as she struggled to unclip the security chain that held the door closed. Heaving on the door she managed to get it open just far enough for her to slip out into the daylight as an angry hiss came from behind her. Lurching down the garden path towards the road she expected to be grabbed and dragged back into the house.

“Help me!” she croaked piteously, she stumbled out on the pavement.

Everything was a blur to her as she reeled along the footpath, old dustbins and junk seemed to leap out at her and try to trip her as she half staggered half ran towards the road; she could hear the sound of a car’s engine coming towards her. Desperately she threw herself into the road where she sank sobbing to her knees.

0=0=0=0

Kennedy was out of the rear door of the Discovery and running before Bodie had even brought the vehicle to a halt; she sprinted the few yards to where the horribly thin, naked girl knelt in the road. As she came up to her Kennedy took off her school blazer before kneeling down beside the girl and draping it around her thin shoulders. As Kennedy knelt next to the girl her noise wrinkled up in disgust; she stank! The girl was filthy, her hair hung in sweat sodden rats tails around her shoulders. Her body was covered in sores, and on her wrists and ankles were rope burns from where she had been tied to something.

“Help me!” whispered the girl as Kennedy put her arm around her shoulder, “Please help me…don’t make me go back…please.”

“Jackie?” shocked Kennedy realised who she was holding.

This refugee from a death camp had been the plump girl she had made it her business to ‘help’. But this couldn’t be, it had only been a day, how…? Kennedy looked up at the sound of running footsteps as Mr Doyle ran towards them holding a blanket in his hands.

“It’s Jackie,” cried Kennedy, “what’s happened to her?” she looked up at Doyle with pleading eyes.

“I don’t know, but she’ll be alright now,” he tried to put the blanket around Jackie’s shoulders but she shied away from him.

Kennedy took the blanket and wrapped it around Jackie and went back to trying to comfort her, she could hear sirens getting closer.

“Ambulance?” she asked as the first police car screamed to a halt in the road.

0=0=0=0

The evening sun shone down into the Chequers Pub’s beer garden as the last of the summer’s bees bumbled from flower to flower humming to themselves as they worked. Doyle sat back in his chair and relaxed with a pint in his hand and a half smile on his lips. His old friend Bodie was seated across the table from him and stared across the river at the cows in the field beyond.

“I don’t know how you can stand it,” Bodie said at last as he put down his glass.

“What?” Doyle came out of his reverie and looked at his old friend.

“This,” Bodie gestured with his hand indicating the pub, the river and the cows, “it’s so bloody quiet!”

“Yes it is, isn’t it?” Doyle smiled as he settled more comfortably in his seat, “and at least I’ve not got insane police Inspectors out for my blood!”

“Yeah okay,” agreed Bodie with a wry grin, “but that wasn’t my fault.”

“Then who’s fault was it?” Doyle laughed at his friend’s discomfort.

“Well yeah ‘that’ was my fault,” admitted Bodie, “but I did offer to help out and at the time I don’t remember her complaining, so…”

“She just cut you out?” Doyle raised his glass to his lips.

“Yeah,” admitted Bodie, “then what with work and things I just sort of…”

“Forgot?” unsurprised Doyle raised an eyebrow.

Bodie looked uncomfortable and changed the subject.

“We caught ‘Laurel and Hardy’ at Heathrow,” Bodie swirled the last inch of beer around the bottom of his glass before drinking it, “Got ‘em on firearms offences, which we managed to turn into suspected terrorism charges. If they don’t want to spend the rest of there lives in jail they’ll talk.”

“Have they?”

“Not yet.”

Doyle finished his own beer and took Bodie’s empty glass from him, he headed towards the bar. A few minutes later he reappeared with two full glasses.

“What about your…little problem?” Bodie picked up his glass and took a swallow.

“Dead by now,” sighed Doyle, “if they don’t eat the brains of the creature they’ve been feeding off they die…mostly…don’t ask me why.”

“You can really put a bloke off his beer you know that?”

“Never!” Doyle laughed out loud.

“What about the girl?” asked Bodie becoming more serious.

“Jackie?” replied Doyle, Bodie nodded his head, “Spent a few days in hospital, she’s in the school infirmary now. She’s putting on weight again she’ll be fine in a week or two.”

“Good,” Bodie nodded his head, “poor kid.”

“Y’know her parents have never once came to see her or offer to take her home?”

“Bastards,” spat Bodie.

0=0=0=0

Kennedy walked into the school infirmary and went and sat on the chair next to Jackie’s bed.

“Hi,” she said as she sat down.

“Hi,” replied Jackie sullenly.

“How’re you feeling,” Kennedy forced a smile, “everyone’s asking after you.”

“No they’re not,” answered Jackie matter-of-factly, “no one cares one way or the other.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” admitted Kennedy, “but I care!” she tried to look sincere, she couldn’t really pull it off though.

“Yeah right,” sighed Jackie as she turned her head away. “You know I saw you when I was trying to escape.”

“See I do care!” Kennedy smiled, “Was I cheering you on?”

“No, you where yelling at me for being slow and telling me to get a move on,” Jackie wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, “like you always do.”

“Sounds like me.” Kennedy reached out to take Jackie’s hand in her own, she saw where Jackie’s nails had been broken or pulled off during her escape, “Look, if you let me I’ll try to do better in future.”

“So you can win your bet?” Jackie tried to pull her hand away but Kennedy held it too tightly.

“Who?” Kennedy knew ‘who’ almost before the word was out of her mouth. “NO! I want to do better…I-I’ve sort of grown used to having you around.”

“We shared a room for one night,” Jackie explained, “which you weren’t too thrilled about.”

“Yeah alright,” Kennedy’s shoulders slumped, “I’m a bitch, and a bully and not a very nice person. I’ve got enough people telling me that…I don’t need you doing it as well.”

“Yeah,” agreed Jackie with just a hint of self righteous triumph. 

For a moment there was silence between the girls.

“Of course we’re both social lepers now,” Kennedy said with a shrug.

“We are?”

“Well you always were, but no one’s going to talk to me after Maya’s spread her little lies about what happened to you,” Kennedy stroked the back of Jackie’s hand with her thumb as she spoke, “and of course if I’m seen with you none of my old friends will talk to me. So we’ll have to stick together now.”

Maya had been telling everyone who’d listen that Kennedy had paid for Liposuction on Jackie and it had all gone very badly wrong. 

“We will?” Jackie sounded hopeful and ignored Kennedy’s other comment.

“Yeah, we will.” Kennedy started to regain some of her old self confidence, “so, and I never thought I’d ever hear myself say this; when you’ve put on some more weight we’ll go out and buy you some pretty things…starting with new underwear! I’ve burnt all your old stuff!”

“You what!?!?” Screeched Jackie.

“Oh come on now,” Kennedy looked at Jackie as if she was doing her the greatest favour in the world. “It was hideous! By the time I’m finished with you they’ll be boys…or girls, if you want, fighting to take you out.”

“You think?” asked Jackie not believing a word of it.

“Sure,” Kennedy laughed before getting serious again, “but next time you want to lose a few pounds come and see me about a calorie controlled diet first…hmmm? I don’t think I can go through that again.”

“You an’ me both,” Jackie agreed.

Kennedy stood up and let go of Jackie’s hand.

“Look I’ll be back later,” she said, “with flowers and grapes and stuff to brighten up this hole…I’ve also been told I’ve got to bring your school books so you don’t fall behind so…”

As she turned to go Kennedy noticed an envelope on the table by Jackie’s bed.

“What’s this?” she asked picking it up.

“Don’t know,” admitted Jackie, “someone must’a left it there, I didn’t open it.”

Kennedy picked up the envelope and opened it, inside she found a ‘get Well Soon’ card, the picture on the front was all cute cartoon puppies and butterflies…quite sickening really. She opened the card to see who it was from. Her eyes fell on the hand written verse inside and her whole body went rigid as she read.

‘To Jackie’, it said, ‘Roses are red, Violets are blue, Mummy and Daddy, don’t love you!’ It wasn’t signed, it didn’t need to be Kennedy knew the handwriting.

“Its not for you,” she told Jackie, “someone must’a left it here by mistake…I’ll get rid of it.”

Kennedy walked away but paused at the door before she went out into the corridor.

“I’ll be back in half an hour, with catalogues an’ stuff,” she explained with a smile, “and I’ll show you all the nice clothes you’re going to buy.”

Kennedy walked quickly along the corridor trying to remember all the things Mr Doyle had told her about how to hit people and not leave any marks. She smiled to herself as she thought it was time to try out a few of these techniques, and she knew just who to use as a test dummy.

0=0=0=0

The stink of stale urine assailed Kennedy’s delicate nose as she and Doyle hid in the shadows of the dank, dark, underground car-park. Kennedy shifted uneasily, she didn’t like it here; she’d much rather be sitting on Jackie’s bed going through teen magazines choosing new outfits, and planning their eagerly anticipated shopping trip to London.

“When you said we were going on a field trip,” Kennedy fidgeted as she crouched behind the old car in the darkness, “I at least thought we’d end up in a field or something.”

“Sssh!” Doyle tried to ease the cramp that was starting to cripple him.

“It’s disgusting down here!” Kennedy complained in a loud whisper, “It smells, and it’s icky and god only knows what I’ve just trodden in and…”

“Shut up!” snapped Doyle.

“…and I only bought these trainers last week!” nothing was going to stop Kennedy in mid rant.

“Which part of ‘Shut up’ don’t you understand?” Doyle punctuated his comment by slapping Kennedy on the back of the head.

“Hey!” ducking away from Doyle, Kennedy ‘shut up’ and started to sulk, “Touch me again and I’ll sue, jerk,” she muttered miserably. “or Daddy will.”

“Look!” Doyle was getting really exasperated with his potential, “We need to check that this ‘Crusher’ creature hasn’t got any-more eggs stashed away and then deal with him…her…it! Okay?”

“Still don’t see why I have to be here,” mumbled Kennedy miserably.

“F’god’s sake girl!” Doyle raised his hand to slap Kennedy’s head again but stopped himself, “Just live with it will you?” Doyle shook his head in despair and looked between the abandoned cars towards the up ramp.

Seeing a figure move down the ramp into the semi-darkness of the lower level Doyle pulled a ‘Low-light’ scope from under his jacket. Putting the device to his eye he nodded his head to himself and quickly replaced the sight in its hiding place.

“That’s him,” he whispered.

“Who?” Kennedy was still sulking and had her back turned to the ramp.

“The bleedin’ demon!” Doyle whispered franticly, “Who do you think? Bloody Angelina Jolie or someone?”

“Where?” Kennedy shuffled around so she could see the figure as it walked across the carpark, “Why don’t you kill it then we can go home?”

“We’ve got to wait to see if it’s got any eggs down here.” Doyle explained.

“Oh come on!” Kennedy rested her chin on the wing of the car they were hiding behind, “Just shoot it and let’s go…what harm can eggs do?”

“I’ll bloody-well shoot you if you don’t shut-up and stop complaining!” Doyle was really annoyed now.

Kennedy sighed in that way only teenage girls can, “Not fair.” she grumbled, knowing that her Watcher would never actually carry out his threat.

Doyle watched as the demon walked over to a dark corner of the car-park and squatted down. It seemed to be moving something, a large bundle of rags maybe, then the smell hit him and he knew exactly what the demon was moving.

“Oh gross!” gagged Kennedy from beside him as she waved her hand in front of her face.

Pulling his trusty old Walther P38 from his pocket Doyle got up and started to walk quickly and quietly across the space between their hiding place and the demon. The demon had still not noticed the watcher and potential when they stopped about ten paces behind him. Doyle pulled back the slide on his pistol and let it fly forward with a menacing double click. Hearing the noise the demon sprang to its feet and turned to face the threat. Hissing viciously the demon found itself starring down the barrel of Doyle’s pistol as he aimed it unwaveringly at the creature’s head. The demon leapt at Doyle its taloned hands reaching for his throat.

Calmly Doyle pulled the trigger and watched as the hollow point slugs smashed into the monster’s head. Once, twice, three times the pistol fired, the bullets blasting pieces of brain and skull across the garage floor. With a soft thud the demon crumpled to the floor at Doyle’s feet, it lay still in an ever expanding pool of its own blood. Calmly Doyle walked around the body and put two more rounds into its head almost severing it from the body.

“Eww!” Kennedy removed her hands from her ears, “That’s disgusting!” she walked over to get a closer look at the demon but stopped before she could get blood on her shoes, “Oh gross,” she muttered as she looked down at the dead demon.

“Let’s go see what he was so interested in,” Doyle kept his pistol in his hand.

“Do we have to?” Kennedy carefully worked her way around the demon’s corpse and followed Doyle.

Sure enough Doyle found what he had suspected all along, the demon had been checking on a corpse it had used to incubate one of its eggs. The body was quite ripe by now and Doyle could hear Kennedy retching behind him. He smiled with malicious satisfaction at the girl’s reaction. Too late did he notice the top of the corpse’s head fall off and roll away across the filthy floor.

It was as if he was trying to move through treacle as he tried to bring his pistol to bear on the foul little beast that was gathering itself to leap at his throat. Springing towards him the hatchling bounced off its four arachnid like legs and flew through the air, its mouth wide open to expose its overly long teeth. Doyle knew he’d never get his pistol round in time to save himself as the little monster headed inexorably towards him.

Only to be intercepted by Kennedy’s foot. 

She kicked the creature across the car-park and into the wall where it crouched momentarily stunned. It quickly recovered, however, and started to scuttle across the floor towards the humans making a high pitched squeaking noise as it moved.

“SPLAT!” Pieces of hatchling oozed out from under Kennedy’s feet.

“Oh my god!” Kennedy shuddered in disgust.

“Well done,” Doyle climbed to his feet and made his way over to where Kennedy gingerly stepped away from the creature she’d just flattened.

“Will you look at my trainers!?” Squealed Kennedy as she stepped away from the remains and simultaneously pointed at the rotting human brains and crushed hatchling that covered her footwear. “I’ll never be able to wear these again!” she added in disgust.

“I’ll buy you a new pair,” Doyle limped over to stand next to Kennedy and examined the little monster.

“You will!” Kennedy turned towards Doyle in an instant, “Coz I’ve seen this really cool pair of boots in a shop in the mall that I’m sooo dying to try on an’…”

“Let’s go,” Doyle turned towards the exit and started to walk away.

“Hey!” Kennedy ran after him, “Don’t we have to clean up?” she asked with no great enthusiasm.

“Naaah! Leave it,” Doyle walked on, the pain in his leg easing the more he moved, “I expect it’ll turn to goo before long.” 

“It will?” Kennedy smiled relieved that there was to be no clean up duties this trip. As they walked up the ramp into the day light a thought struck her, “Was that my first Slay?”

“No!” Doyle replied quickly forestalling any self congratulatory calibrations by Kennedy the Bug Slayer.

“Why?” she whined crest fallen, “I killed it didn’t I?”

“I don’t think jumping on a demon hatchling with both feet actually counts as a ‘Slay’.” Wearily Doyle walked on remembering to unload his pistol and put it back into his pocket before they got out into the daylight.

“Spoil sport,” mumbled Kennedy, but then she brightened at the thought of getting her watcher to buy her those boots, “so, when do we go shopping?”

The End.


End file.
